- Title:
-
The Influence of Human Behaviour of House Loss
- Date:
- September 2008
- Organisations
- CSIRO
- Authors:
- R.M. Blanchi, J.E. Leonard
- Location:
- Highett, VIC, Australia
Overview
The International Bushfire Research Conference 2008 - incorporating The 15th annual AFAC Conference, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Bushfire is an inevitable part of living at the urban interface and in peri-urban areas. Effective assessment of bushfire risk and house loss risk should address a range of factors such as fire weather, fuel load, topography, building design and building location, and occupant knowledge and behaviour. This paper details the observation that human activity is the single biggest factor in influence of house loss risk for Australian Bushfires due to their capacity to extinguish small ignitions outside and within surrounding structures once the fire front has passed.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of human activities before, during and after the fire and to discuss the evolution of human behaviour in the last 25 years. This analysis is based on data collected in different surveys conducted after large bushfire events resulting in significant house loss (from Ash Wednesday 1983 to the Eyre Peninsula in 2005).
