Safer Together – A behavioural approach to reduce community bushfire risk in Victoria (Phase 2)

‍What did we do?

The main steps involved in Phase 2 were:

1. ‍Behaviour identification: Create an initial ‘long list’ of potential risk reduction behaviours via workshops with practitioners and experts from land and fire management agencies. We then worked closely with the Safer Together Community First team to shorten and refine this list.
2. ‍Behaviour prioritisation: Prioritise target behaviours through the creation of an Impact Likelihood Matrix informed by conducting large-scale surveys (with land and fire management practitioners and the Victorian community). These surveys helped us to understand each behaviour in terms of their: potential impact to reduce risk, ease for community to do, and adoption across community.‍
3. Deep dive interviews: Explore targeted behaviours from the perspective of householders from high-risk areas who had or hadn’t attended a bushfire planning workshop. This sample of 20 householders identified key barriers and enablers to attending these workshops.‍
4. Develop pilot interventions: Design a series of pilot interventions that aim to encourage or support attendance of bushfire planning workshops by matching the behavioural insights from the deep dive interviews to possible interventions. We then supported Safer Together and CFA staff to develop interventions for pilot testing.‍
5. Trial pilot interventions: Pilot the interventions and measure outcomes by conducting a small-scale pilot trial in collaboration with Safer Together and CFA staff across three sites in Victoria. The effects and lessons from the trial were explored via workshop attendance data, anonymous survey responses provided during workshops, and interviews with key CFA staff. 

What did we find?

• Identification: We identified 29 bushfire risk reduction behaviours across prevention, preparation and response to the threat of bushfires. Most of these behaviours were relevant for Victorian residents, with a few also relevant to visitors to the area.
• Prioritisation: Using an Impact Likelihood Matrix – visually sorting behaviours into those that have higher or lower impact as well as greater or lesser likelihood of being taken up – and in collaboration with the Safer Together team, we prioritised supporting the Victorian community to 'Attend bushfire planning workshops’ for the remainder of the project.
• Interviews: Key barriers to attending bushfire planning workshops identified from the interviews were: a lack of awareness (“I didn’t know about them”), a lack of personalisation of bushfire risk (“It doesn’t affect me”), difficulty getting to the workshop (“They’re too far or hard to get to”) and a lack of time to attend (“I’m too busy”).
• Developing interventions: Four pilot interventions were suggested: an online delivery format for the workshops; offering workshops across more days and at later times; promoting the workshops via a letterbox drop; and personalising bushfire risk.
• Trialling interventions: Offering bushfire planning workshops in an online format showed promise for increasing opportunity for Victorians to attend. Due to covid-19 lockdown restrictions and other limitations at the time of trialling, we could not draw conclusions about the effectiveness of letterbox drops or personalising risk—however, this was an artefact of the trial and does not mean that these approaches are not effective.

What’s next? 

To counter some of the difficulties facing the project (e.g. covid-19 lockdowns and seasonal influences), we would recommend that Deep Dive interviews and intervention trials are next used for more highly prioritised behaviours. We would also suggest conducting large-scale trials, which are run during the appropriate time period for the particular behaviour of interest.