Checklist items for researchers: Householder preparations for bushfires

Fire Note 87: Bushfire CRC researchers Jim McLennan and Glenn Elliott of La Trobe University have produced a handy booklet for community bushfire safety researchers that provides a checklist of questions about household bushfire preparation activities.

Their booklet, Checklist Items For Researchers: Householder Preparations For Bushfires, is based on questions originally drafted for a survey of residents after the 2009 Victorian Black Saturday bushfires, updated, reviewed and expanded.

“The goal was to generate a manageable checklist of activities, incorporating those actions regarded by experienced community bushfire safety practitioners and researchers as sound preparation by residents of communities at-risk of bushfire attack for either staying and defending or for leaving safely,” Jim says.

The result is a 30-item research checklist which includes items related to both staying to defend and leaving safely. It can be modified for particular research purposes and can be used in paper, electronic and on-line formats.

The Checklist booklet is available here.