@article {bnh-8378, title = {Business involvement in disaster management}, number = {15.2023}, year = {2023}, month = {04/2023}, institution = {Natural Hazards Research Australia}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Severe to catastrophic disasters pose the potential to overwhelm traditional emergency management approaches, necessitating the adoption of a whole-of-community approach.

A key component of the whole-of-community approach is building collaborative partnerships between communities, government agencies, community organisations and businesses across the phases of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery to engage their full capacity.

To date, there has been little research examining the role of the business sector in disaster management although many businesses, large and small, provide assistance. This research focuses specifically on the role and involvement of businesses in disaster management.

Pertinent findings of the research were:

}, issn = {15.2023}, author = {Andrew Gissing and Steve George} } @article {bnh-8109, title = {Community organisation involvement in disaster management}, number = {678}, year = {2021}, month = {06/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {MELBOURNE}, abstract = {

Severe to catastrophic disasters pose the potential to overwhelm traditional emergency management approaches, necessitating the adoption of a whole- of-community approach.

A key component of the whole-of-community approach is building collaborative partnerships between communities, government agencies, community organisations and businesses across the phases of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery to engage their full capacity.

To date there has been little research examining the role of Australian community organisations in disaster management although many organisations provide assistance. This research focuses specifically on the role and involvement of community organisations in disaster management.

Pertinent findings of the research were:

Recommendations

The following recommendations are made for consideration to improve the utilisation of capabilities offered by community organisations in disaster management.

  1. Australian disaster management doctrine should be revised to embrace a whole-of-community approach to disaster management.
  2. The role of community organisations including peak bodies should be clearly defined in relevant emergency plans.
  3. Community organisations should be involved in government-led disaster planning and exercises, including involvement in relevant emergency management committees.
  4. Local councils should form community resilience committees to promote collaboration and joint planning between government, community organisations and local businesses. These committees could be sub- committees of relevant emergency management committees.
  5. Government emergency management organisations should collectively work with community organisations to develop an understanding of community networks and community organisation capabilities.
  6. Government funding bodies should enable funding flexibility to allow community organisations to integrate disaster management initiatives into their core business activities.
  7. Specific disaster management grants should be targeted to community organisations to assist with maturing of disaster management capabilities and engagement with communities.
  8. Funding arrangements should enable collaboration between different community organisations, businesses and government.
  9. Community organisation peak bodies should take an active role in building the disaster management capabilities of their members.
  10. Emergency management organisations should work with community organisation peak bodies to develop a training strategy to upskill the staff and volunteers of community organisations in relevant disaster management roles. This could include a toolkit for community organisations to provide guidance on roles and better practice.
  11. Peak bodies and emergency management organisations should work with universities and training providers to incorporate emergency management content in relevant degree and training programs.
  12. Community organisations should work to develop business resilience plans. These can be supported by relevant toolkits tailored to community organisations.
  13. States and Territories should include community organisations within capability maturity assessments.
  14. The roles performed by community organisations in disaster management should be continually evaluated to ensure robust measurement of the value provided by community organisations.
  15. State and Territories should implement initiatives to raise the awareness of the role of community organisations in disaster management. These could include: integration of the role of community organisations within emergency management training, inclusion of community organisations in policy development and emergency management forums, specific communications outlining the role and value of including community organisations in disaster management, senior leadership involvement as champions.
  16. Community recovery programs should include the provision of mental health and wellbeing support to members of community organisations.
}, keywords = {community, disaster, involvement, management, organisations}, issn = {678}, author = {Andrew Gissing and Steve George} } @article {bnh-7964, title = {NSW Mid North Coast flood impact research}, number = {659}, year = {2021}, month = {04/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {MELBOURNE}, abstract = {

On March 18, 2021, an extreme rainfall event kicked off, resulting in severe flooding in the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. 18,000 people were evacuated, including 1,000 flood rescues. Flooding also impacted the North Coast, Hunter, Western Sydney, South Coast, Central West, and North West Regions of NSW. Flooding was also experienced in Southeast Queensland. The focus of this briefing is on flood impacts experienced on the NSW Mid North Coast.

Overview

On March 24, Risk Frontiers, with assistance from the BNHCRC, deployed a survey team to the NSW Mid North Coast region to observe and report on significant flooding in the area. Areas surveyed included, Bulahdelah, Taree, Wingham, Port Macquarie, North Haven, Laurieton, and Dunbogan. In addition to measuring flood depths and recording noteworthy damages to belongings and infrastructure, the team spoke with residents, business owners, and rescue personnel (Rural Fire Service, NSW Fire and Rescue, and State Emergency Services). Discussions covered evacuation, emergency response and communication, community resilience, and the insurability of their homes.

A couple of key issues emerged during the investigation. The first was insurance affordability in areas that were clearly at risk of flooding. Some residents and business owners we spoke with cited quotes for policies covering flood ranging from $5k - $30k per year. Our survey indicates that the full extent of damage will not be evident in claims data due to the low rates of insurance as a lot of individuals had chosen to remain uninsured due to the prohibitive costs quoted for them. Disaster mitigation needs to be considered in these areas to assist with insurance affordability.

Another common concern expressed was the lack of warning and mitigative action. For example, some residents had not considered sandbagging. Residents claimed they were either misinformed or warned too late, and then felt aspects of the process to recover were unclear.

}, keywords = {Flood, Impact, Mid North Coast, New South Wales, quick response, research}, issn = {659}, author = {Steve George and Salom{\'e} Hussein and R Crompton and Thomas Mortlock} } @article {bnh-7012, title = {January 2020 NSW bushfires study}, number = {582}, year = {2020}, month = {06/2020}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

In late January, 2020, Risk Frontiers with the support of the CRC funding for quick response deployed a team to the NSW South Coast region. Areas surveyed include Moruya, Mogo, Malua Bay, Rosedale, the Catalina area of Batemans Bay and Lake Conjola. The majority of damage occurred on December 31, 2019 as catastrophic weather conditions (extreme temperatures and high magnitude winds) intensified existing fire fronts. The conditions transported large quantities of embers into vulnerable communities, destroying hundreds of residential and several commercial buildings. In total, the survey identified 426 bushfire affected properties, most of which were destroyed. Industries/Infrastructure affected included: Bowling / Services club, unit block (12 units), Heritage Park, industrial complex with numerous businesses, extensive damage to electricity infrastructure (power poles and wires along the Princes Highway). This report complements our report for northern NSW (Risk Frontiers, 2020).

}, keywords = {catastrophic weather conditions, embers, fires, nsw}, issn = {582}, author = {Steve George and James O{\textquoteright}Brien and Salom{\'e} Hussein and Jonathan Van Leeuwen} } @article {bnh-7705, title = {Planning and capability requirements for catastrophic and cascading disasters - final project report}, number = {634}, year = {2020}, month = {12/2020}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Background

Planning and capability requirements for catastrophic and cascading disasters\ was a three-year research project focusing on the research questions of:

The research\ was based on literature reviews; interviews with representatives from emergency management organisations, businesses and community organisations; analysis of historical disaster loss data and content analysis of previous business contributions to disaster responses.

Findings

While\ a truly catastrophic disaster is by definition unmanageable, emergency managers can still help reduce loss of life and property and assist in sustaining the continuity of affected communities (Harrald, 2006). However, business-as-usual response strategies that work for smaller, more frequent events will not cut it in truly catastrophic circumstances. Often the success of the response is reliant upon the capacities already present in communities. Emergency managers must look to bolster these extant capacities.

Emergency services need to conceptualise how their service delivery models will have to adjust to the overwhelming demand for services and the complexity of catastrophes, including how they will anticipate and work with community first responders. Emergency management organisations must define capabilities they are best able to deliver in support of wider community efforts. For other capabilities, planners should look to community-based sources to supplement those available within government and consider altering service delivery standards.

Our results support existing well defined principles for disaster planning and risk reduction (Alexander, 2005): however, we found they are not effectively implemented to develop plans that consistently inform decision making. Planning is being inhibited by cultural, knowledge and resource constraints dominated by reactive response-oriented approaches.

There is a lack of knowledge regarding collective capability requirements and gaps to manage severe-to-catastrophic disasters. Unlike the defence forces, emergency services collectively lack a long-term view of capability\ requirements. There is need for a collective national view of future capability\ requirements to inform investment.

Severe-to-catastrophic disasters will require resources beyond the impacted\ jurisdiction. Although resources are already shared between jurisdictions, there is\ a need to bolster approaches for jurisdictions to work seamlessly together,\ including investments to enhance interoperability and to strengthen\ mechanisms of national coordination. The Commonwealth{\textquoteright}s role must also be\ defined by Commonwealth emergency management legislation as has\ previously been recommended (Eburn et al., 2019).

The need for strengthening national coordination arrangements is reinforced by\ analysis of historical compound disasters, which shows that it is possible for\ numerous concurrent or sequential severe disasters to occur across multiple\ jurisdictions, resulting in potential resource conflicts across jurisdictions.

Our research ultimately supports the principle of shared responsibility. The whole-of-community approach recognises that any severe-to-catastrophic disaster will\ involve whole-of-society responses. Despite the recognition of the value of\ businesses and community organisations in the National Strategy for Disaster\ Resilience, emergency management approaches are based on an inadequate\ view of community organisation and business capabilities and the culture\ remains largely government-centric.

Governments, whilst considering the lessons of previous disasters, must be\ proactive, forward looking and risk-based. Capability and capacity\ requirements for severe-to-catastrophic disasters will likely evolve into the future\ due to societal, environmental and technological changes. Technology offers\ significant opportunities to enhance capabilities.

Ultimately, our research supports the need for further efforts to mitigate disaster\ risk and build resilience, similar to recommendations of the Productivity\ Commission and APRA.

Utilisation\ 

The\ project adopted a collaborative approach with end-users assisting to define\ research questions and utilisation outputs. A key utilisation output from the\ research has been an emergency management capability maturity assessment\ tool that can be utilised by jurisdictions and organisations to better understand\ potential capability gaps in the context of severe-to-catastrophic disaster\ scenarios. Through utilisation funding provided by the Bushfire and Natural\ Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, this tool will be promoted for use across\ all jurisdictions.

Following analysis of emergency management legislation, a model\ Commonwealth Emergency Management Act was drafted for consideration by\ end-users.

Outcomes of the research were presented as evidence to the 2020 Royal Commission\ into National Natural Disaster Arrangements.

}, keywords = {Capability, cascading, Catastrophic, disasters, Planning}, issn = {634}, author = {Andrew Gissing and Steve George and Michael Eburn and John McAneney and Matthew Timms and Stuart Browning} } @article {bnh-5807, title = {Preventable residential fire fatalities in Australia July 2003 to June 2017}, number = {506}, year = {2019}, month = {08/2019}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Introduction

On average, more than one fire-related death occurs in a residential context every week in Australia. That equates to approximately the same number of deaths as occurred during the Black Saturday bushfires (173) every three years. These deaths are overwhelmingly preventable. Deaths from residential fires have significant social, economic and emotional impacts on individuals, families, communities and also on the firefighters and other emergency service workers who attend these tragic incidents. The last published national study into residential fire fatalities in Australia was released in 2005 (Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC), 2005). The current study follows on from that report but looks in greater depth at who is most at risk. It provides fire services and other stakeholders with an analysis of preventable residential fire fatalities to inform evidence-based policy and practice to reduce the number of future deaths.

Aims

The aims of this study were to:

Methods

The methodology of this study is based primarily on the collection and analysis of coronial records from the National Coronial Information System (NCIS) database, supported by the analysis of publicly available Coronial reports. The NCIS database is an online facility storing coronial cases from all jurisdictions in Australia from 2000 onwards. To access the NCIS database ethics approvals were obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committees of Macquarie University and the Victorian Department of Justice and Regulation, from the Coroners Court of Victoria Research Committee and from the Western Australian Coronial Ethics Committee.\ 

Australian records from 1 July 2003 to 30 June 2017 were accessed in the NCIS by a\ variety of searches. After refinement of the applicable dataset, relevant structured\ and non-structured data from the NCIS (comprising the summary page, police,\ autopsy and toxicology reports and coroner{\textquoteright}s findings) were coded for 41 fields and\ entered into a specially constructed Microsoft (MS) Access database {\textendash} the\ Preventable Residential Fire Fatalities Database. Once complete, the data were\ exported to MS Excel tables and statistically analysed.\ \ 

Results/Discussion

Mortaility statistics

This study found that at least 900 people have died in preventable residential fires in\ Australia from July 2003 to June 2017, averaging approximately 64 deaths per year\ or more than one preventable residential fire death every week. This is a national\ death rate of approximately 0.29 per 100,000 population. The majority of deaths\ occur in single fatality incidents. Between 2003 and 2017 there was no clear\ declining trend in fire fatalities.

The results from this study highlight that the conceptualisation of fire fatality risk is\ complex. The presence of a single risk factor on its own is unlikely to significantly\ increase a person{\textquoteright}s risk of dying in a residential fire. It is the co-occurrence of a\ range of factors surrounding the person, their behaviours, their residential\ environment and other external factors that is likely to impact their overall level of
risk of having a fire that results in their death.

Fire services, individuals and other stakeholders can and should do more to reduce the rate of residential fire fatalities further, with an aim of reducing preventable residential fire deaths towards zero. Interventions to reduce the risk of residential fire for those most at risk of dying need to encompass both technological and human-centred approaches.

The residence and location

Free-standing houses/ villas were the housing type where the majority of fatal fires occurred (67.1\%). However, stand-alone houses comprise 78.4\% of housing stock in Australia, so other housing types may be over-represented in the fatality data. Similarly, owner occupiers were the most commonly identified property tenure (53\%), but owner occupiers account for approximately 67\% of all property tenures in
Australia (ABS, 2017). This indicates that other tenure types, such as private and public rentals, may be over-represented in fire fatalities.\ 

Geographically, most fatal residential fires occurred in major cities, but with regard to the death rate per 100,000 population, there was over-representation of deaths in regional and remote areas. The analysis of the fatality data in relation to areas of relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage (IRSAD) (refer to pp.31-32 and Appendix 3) shows that most fatalities occurred in locations where there is relatively greater socio-economic disadvantage.\ Fatal preventable residential fires start most commonly in the living room/ lounge or\ bedroom. They are not necessarily large or severe fires, with approximately half of\ fatal fires burning one room or less of the structure.

Seasonality

The most common characteristics of residential fires that are fatal include that they\ occur mostly during the Australian winter months. They occur most commonly\ between hours of 8pm-8am and particularly from midnight-4am.

Smoke alarms

Smoke alarms are the most important residential fire safety device. They are required\ by law in residential properties in all Australian jurisdictions. For this study, data on\ smoke alarms was collected from the narrative parts of the NCIS database. In a\ large majority of cases (65.9\%), this information was not known. The extent that the\ presence of a smoke alarm was noted is low considering their importance, and
considering that the absence of a smoke alarm may have had an impact on the\ fatality outcome (e.g., by providing an earlier warning to the fire victim.)

The people

Single variable analysis from the current research found that those most at risk of\ dying in a preventable residential fire included:

By age cohort, people aged >=65 are the group most at risk of dying in a residential fire. In the >=65 cohort, the fatality rate increases with age; older age groups are more at risk. The data indicates that the other factors that increase risk in older people include smoking, having a disability, the presence in their blood of alcohol and/ or medications, living alone and requiring support to live at home. Where these
factors are present in combination, an older person{\textquoteright}s risk may increase significantly.\ 

The presence of a working smoke alarm may not provide early enough warning to enable older people to escape from a fire. This is an area that needs more research, but it indicates that there may be life-saving benefits if fire services and other stakeholders focus on increasing the uptake of specialist smoke alarms appropriate to the needs of older people.

The future fire fatality risk for older people is likely to be on an increasing trajectory due to a range of demographic and policy factors. These include an ageing population and this growing population of older people\ {\textquotedblleft}ageing in place{\textquotedblright} within their own home for longer.

Children aged 0-4 had the largest number of deaths of any 5 year age range. The cause of fire was more often lighters or matches (n=31), which may indicate that a significant number of fires were lit by children during fire-play. The link to social and financial disadvantage was particularly significant in this cohort, with almost half (48.6\%, n=34) of deaths in the 0-4 age bracket occurring in locations in the top 10\% of greatest socio-economic disadvantage, and 87.2\% of fatalities occurred in the top 40\% of locations of greatest disadvantage.

Fire safety interventions for this cohort need to be focused on increasing the basic home fire safety of families with young children, particularly in areas of social and financial disadvantage. Fire services and other stakeholders may consider interventions that partner with other services, such as maternal and child health services, to identify and reach those most at risk.

Within the fire fatality data, 46.7\% (n=420) of decedents were identified as having at least one disability present. Physical disabilities comprised 46.2\% of disabilities identified, while mental health and neurological disorders made up 27.8\% and 9.7\% of disabilities identified. People with a disability are likely to be over-represented in the fire fatality data. Mental health and neurological disorders are an identified risk factor for residential fire fatality. Similar to older people, there may be a lifesaving benefit in fire services and other stakeholders focusing on increasing the uptake of specialist smoke alarms appropriate to the needs of people with a disability.\ 

Some 8.2\% (n=57) of decedents were identified as Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander\ (TSI) or both. Approximately 3.3\% of the Australian population identify as Aboriginal\ or TSI (ABS, 2019a), meaning that this cohort are over-represented in the data by a\ factor of 2.5. Aboriginal/ TSI people comprised 12\% of fatalities under 65 years of age and 3\% of people over 65 years, likely reflecting the younger age structure of the\ Aboriginal and TSI population.

Smokers are over-represented to a large extent in residential fire fatalities. Of cases\ where the smoking status of the decedent was known (n=428), 65.4\% of people\ were smokers. During the study period, smoking rates in Australia decreased\ significantly, and reduced-fire-risk cigarettes were mandated in Australia in 2010. In\ the 2004/5 financial year 23.3\% of Australians were smokers. By 2014/15 this had
decreased to 15.5\%. The fatality data does not reflect any decline in the number of\ smokers who died over the course of the study period. It is unclear why this is the\ case.

Smoking materials are a major cause of ignition of fatal residential fires. For those cases where the fire cause was known, over a quarter (26.7\%, n=161) were caused by smoking materials (i.e., cigarettes, pipes etc), with just over a third of those (n=56) relating to smoking in bed. There was a strong link between smoking materials as the cause of fire and the residence being located in a relatively disadvantaged area,\ with 49\% of fires caused by smoking materials occurring in the top 25\% of most\ disadvantaged locations.

Recommendations

Fire services and other stakeholders may consider the following recommendations to reduce the incidence of preventable residential fire fatalities in Australia:

Conclusion

Preventable residential fire fatalities in Australia remain a significant public health problem, with an average of 64 fatalities each year. Deaths from residential fires have significant social, economic and emotional impacts on individuals, families, communities and also on the firefighters and other emergency service workers who attend these tragic incidents.

For the first time in over 14 years, this study provides an update on the evidence around the extent of preventable residential fire fatalities in Australia, those people most at risk and the details of fire incidents and residences where fatal fires have occurred. It provides a set of data that fire services and other stakeholders can use to develop evidence-based policy and practice to reduce the occurrence of fatal residential fires.

}, keywords = {Australia, Emergency management, Fatalities, Fire, metropolitan fire, MFB}, isbn = {978-0-6482756-3-3}, issn = {506}, author = {Coates, Lucinda and Geoff Kaandorp and Julie Harris and Jonathan Van Leeuwen and Ashley Avci and Jacob Evans and Steve George and Andrew Gissing and Robin van den Honert and Katharine Haynes} } @article {bnh-3452, title = {Estimating present day extreme water level exceedance probabilities around the coastline of Australia: tropical cyclone-induced storm surges}, journal = {Climate Dynamics}, volume = {42}, year = {2014}, month = {01/2014}, pages = {139-157}, chapter = {139}, abstract = {

The incidence of major storm surges in the last decade have dramatically emphasized the immense destructive capabilities of extreme water level events, particularly when driven by severe tropical cyclones. Given this risk, it is vitally important that the exceedance probabilities of extreme water levels are accurately evaluated to inform risk-based flood and erosion management, engineering and for future land-use planning and to ensure the risk of catastrophic structural failures due to under-design or expensive wastes due to over-design are minimised. Australia has a long history of coastal flooding from tropical cyclones. Using a novel integration of two modeling techniques, this paper provides the first estimates of present day extreme water level exceedance probabilities around the whole coastline of Australia, and the first estimates that combine the influence of astronomical tides, storm surges generated by both extra-tropical and tropical cyclones, and seasonal and inter-annual variations in mean sea level. Initially, an analysis of tide gauge records has been used to assess the characteristics of tropical cyclone-induced surges around Australia. However, given the dearth (temporal and spatial) of information around much of the coastline, and therefore the inability of these gauge records to adequately describe the regional climatology, an observationally based stochastic tropical cyclone model has been developed to synthetically extend the tropical cyclone record to 10,000\ years. Wind and pressure fields derived for these synthetically generated events have then been used to drive a hydrodynamic model of the Australian continental shelf region with annual maximum water levels extracted to estimate exceedance probabilities around the coastline. To validate this methodology, selected historic storm surge events have been simulated and resultant storm surges compared with gauge records. Tropical cyclone induced exceedance probabilities have been combined with estimates derived from a 61-year water level hindcast described in a companion paper to give a single estimate of present day extreme water level probabilities around the whole coastline of Australia. Results of this work are freely available to coastal engineers, managers and researchers via a web-based tool (www.sealevelrise.info). The described methodology could be applied to other regions of the world, like the US east coast, that are subject to both extra-tropical and tropical cyclones.

}, doi = {10.1007/s00382-012-1653-0}, url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007\%2Fs00382-012-1653-0}, author = {Ivan D. Haigh and Leigh R. MacPherson and M. S. Mason and E.M.S Wijeratne and Charitha Pattiaratchi and R Crompton and Steve George} } @article {bnh-3451, title = {Estimating present day extreme water level exceedance probabilities around the coastline of Australia: tides, extra-tropical storm surges and mean sea level}, journal = {Climate Dynamics}, volume = {42}, year = {2014}, month = {01/2014}, pages = {121-138}, chapter = {121}, abstract = {

The occurrence of extreme water levels along low-lying, highly populated and/or developed coastlines can lead to considerable loss of life and billions of dollars of damage to coastal infrastructure. Therefore it is vitally important that the exceedance probabilities of extreme water levels are accurately evaluated to inform risk-based flood management, engineering and future land-use planning. This ensures the risk of catastrophic structural failures due to under-design or expensive wastes due to over-design are minimised. This paper estimates for the first time present day extreme water level exceedence probabilities around the whole coastline of Australia. A high-resolution depth averaged hydrodynamic model has been configured for the Australian continental shelf region and has been forced with tidal levels from a global tidal model and meteorological fields from a global reanalysis to generate a 61-year hindcast of water levels. Output from this model has been successfully validated against measurements from 30 tide gauge sites. At each numeric coastal grid point, extreme value distributions have been fitted to the derived time series of annual maxima and the several largest water levels each year to estimate exceedence probabilities. This provides a reliable estimate of water level probabilities around southern Australia; a region mainly impacted by extra-tropical cyclones. However, as the meteorological forcing used only weakly includes the effects of tropical cyclones, extreme water level probabilities are underestimated around the western, northern and north-eastern Australian coastline. In a companion paper we build on the work presented here and more accurately include tropical cyclone-induced surges in the estimation of extreme water level. The multi-decadal hindcast generated here has been used primarily to estimate extreme water level exceedance probabilities but could be used more widely in the future for a variety of other research and practical applications.

}, doi = {10.1007/s00382-012-1652-1}, url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-012-1652-1}, author = {Ivan D. Haigh and E.M.S Wijeratne and Leigh R. MacPherson and Charitha Pattiaratchi and M. S. Mason and R Crompton and Steve George} }