@article {bnh-8380, title = {Using videos in floods and bushfires to educate, signal risk, and promote protective action in the community}, journal = {Safety Science}, volume = {164}, year = {2023}, month = {04/2023}, abstract = {

Videos are commonly used by emergency services agencies in natural hazard emergencies to communicate to the public about the hazard, its possible risks, and to promote protective action. To evaluate the efficacy of the videos being disseminated and amplified during an event, this research examined the extent to which different types of videos trigger risk perceptions, promote protective action, and improve knowledge about the hazard and impact. The findings suggest a video containing a smaller number of facts is most useful at impacting the public{\textquoteright}s hazard knowledge, visualisations (real-life or infographics) of facts helps improve knowledge, and videos highlighting the impact an emergency is having (or had) through people{\textquoteright}s experiences helped improve hazard knowledge, risk perceptions, and protective action intentions. Finally, while footage of a bushfire triggers threat perceptions and some coping appraisal, the style is not as useful for building hazard knowledge. The research extends visual risk literacy knowledge and offers practical guidance for agencies operating in high-risk environments seeking to achieve behavioural compliance. The research argues videos will continue to be an important tool in the public information and warning milieu for any risk event.

}, keywords = {bushfires, Floods, Hazard knowledge, Risk perception, Visual communication, wildfires}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2023.106166}, url = {https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S092575352300108X?token=E04DACC8FEDBF7004C50FE7FE1D497A53312A572F2594F14129DBAA7AEB2CA157658D01EDBA569E71D658B294138AA15\&originRegion=us-east-1\&originCreation=20230508003157}, author = {Paula Dootson and Erica Kuligowski and Scott Murray} } @article {bnh-8373, title = {A review of firebrand studies on generation and transport}, journal = {Fire Safety Journal}, volume = {134}, year = {2022}, month = {09/2022}, abstract = {

Firebrands play a vital role in the propagation of fire by starting new fires called spotfires, ahead of the fire front during wildfire progression. Firebrands are a harbinger of damage to infrastructure; their effects particularly pose a threat to people living within the wildland-urban-interface, they can hamper the suppression of wildfire and block evacuation routes for communities and emergency services. Short-range firebrands which travel along with the wind, with little or no lofting, are particularly crucial in increasing fire front propagation and damaging structures situated close to the wildland-urban interface. In the Daylesford fire of 1962 in Australia, massive short-range spotting (the process of spot fire ignition and merging of spots caused by firebrands) occurred in the eucalyptus forest and increased the rate of fire spread by roughly three times more than that computed using an operational fire model. Similarly, long-range firebrands can be transported by the fire plume and ambient wind and can ignite new fire up to 30{\textendash}40\ km from the source of fire as observed in the 2009 Black Saturday fire in Australia.

A large amount of experimental research has been conducted to quantify the effects of firebrands, to develop empirical models and to benchmark results for\ Computational Fluid Dynamic\ (CFD) based fire model validations. In recent years, some CFD models have been studied primarily for their validation purposes. These studies have been reviewed here. To perform useful\ parametric studies\ of firebrand transport using CFD models as well as further development of CFD models, more targeted studies need to be conducted.

}, keywords = {firebrand generator, Firebrand spotting, Firebrand transport, wildfires}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2022.103674}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379711222001515}, author = {Rahul Wadhwani and Catherine Sullivan and Amila Wickramasinghe and Matthew Kyng and Nazmul Khan and Khalid Moinuddin} } @inbook {bnh-7381, title = {Developing guidelines for increasing the resilience of informal settlements exposed to wildfire risk using a risk-based planning approach}, booktitle = {Understanding Disaster Risk: A Multidimensional Approach}, year = {2020}, pages = {159-178}, publisher = { Elsevier}, organization = { Elsevier}, chapter = {2.1}, abstract = {

Internationally, there is an increasing concern with the development of improved ways of dealing with disasters (UNISDR, 2015). Wildfires bring about greater disaster risks at the urban-rural interface of wildfire-prone areas, where lives and properties are more exposed. These risks are often greater in contexts of informality, where settlements have been built with limited consideration of risks. This chapter reports on the production of guidelines to develop resilience to wildfires for communities living in informal settlements exposed to wildfire risk. It responds to Sendai Framework for Action{\textquoteright}s priority one {\textquotedblleft}understanding disaster risk{\textquotedblright} (UNISDR, 2015, p. 15). The investigation is approached through participatory action research. It is the result of a collaboration between diverse stakeholders during the seminar {\textquotedblleft}Prevention of Forest Fire Risks in Urban Settlements and Buildings: A Planning and Design Approach.{\textquotedblright} The study case is Ag{\"u}ita de la Perdiz, in Concepcion, Chile, an informal settlement with ongoing wildfire risk. The seminar{\textquoteright}s product is condensed in a set of guidelines. These guidelines{\textemdash}and the process of producing them{\textemdash}are expected to contribute to disseminating knowledge about general design and planning strategies to mitigate wildfire risk as well as to strengthen local capacities. It is argued that the collaborative process undertaken to develop the guidelines is replicable in other places to address context-specific issues.

}, keywords = {community engagement, Informal settlements, Local communities, spatial planning, urban planning, wildfires}, issn = {978-0-12-819047-0}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-819047-0.00002-0}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128190470000020}, author = {Constanza Gonzalez-Mathiesen and Alan March} } @mastersthesis {bnh-6633, title = {Understanding Wildfire Patterns in the South-Eastern Australia}, year = {2018}, month = {04/2018}, school = {University of New South Wales}, address = {Sydney}, abstract = {

Wildfires affect ecological processes, threaten human lives and cause economic losses. Understanding of fire patterns is required to better support the planning of sustainable fire management and risk reduction activities. Fire occurrence and fire size are two essential fire pattern components that describe the distribution of fires and the impacts of fires on landscapes and ecosystems. They vary substantially within and between regions due to variation in weather, fuel, topography and ignition sources. In this thesis, remotely sensed and administrative records as well as Generalised Linear Models and Generalised Additive Models have been used to understand fire occurrence patterns in the south-eastern part of Australia, as well as to obtain knowledge on the patterns of fire occurrence and fire size in the inland semi-arid riverine area.The results suggest that in the south-eastern Australia, wildfires are more likely to occur in mountainous areas, forests, savannas, and in areas with high vegetation coverage and near human infrastructures, while they are less likely to occur on grasslands and shrublands. Environmental variables are strong individual predictors while anthropogenic variables contribute more to the final model. Fire-ignition drivers and their effects vary across ecoregions. There are non-linear relationships between the probability of fire ignition and some of its drivers e.g. the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index.This study also reveals that on the NSW side of the Riverina bioregion, human-caused fires mostly occur in spring and summer while natural fires are clustered in summer. Forested wetlands and dry lands experience summer and spring-summer fire regime, respectively. Fire probabilities are higher in forested wetlands than in dry lands and in areas with intermediate inundation frequencies. Weather, fuel and ignition sources are comparably important in regulating human-caused ignitions, while weather contributes more than fuel in driving natural ignitions. Larger-size Fires that burned Entirely in forested Wetlands (FEW) are associated with higher ambient rainfall conditions of the 6th, 13-14th and 17-18th months before fires. Fire danger index is more powerful than other ambient weather factors in explaining the FEW size. The contributing and the most effective factors become different when fires burned in dry lands are incorporated.

}, keywords = {fire occurrence patterns, modelling, risk reduction, wildfires}, url = {https://www.unsworks.unsw.edu.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?vid=UNSWORKS\&docid=unsworks_51121\&context=L}, author = {Yang, Zhang} }