Australian bushfires have been a major problem for centuries. The country experiences bushfires every year, especially in summer, and affects millions of people's health when they occur. Bushfires produce smoke and air pollution, which affects the health and wellbeing of humans. For instance, according to UNEP (2020), Australia's capital, Canberra, recorded the worst air quality readings in 2020 compared to the rest of the world. Bushfires produce fine particulate pollution, the PM2.5, which can be propagated to long distances causing harm to humans, which has become a public health threat in Australia (Walter et al., 2020). The effects of exposure to smoke pollution include respiratory impacts and mental health issues. Bushfires are caused by several factors, including human actions (accidental or deliberate), climate change, and natural phenomena, such as lightning. According to Ghosh (2020), global warming increases bushfires by 30% in Australia. There are projections of increased global warming in the future, making bushfire incidents more common (Ghosh, 2020). Although the Australian fire prevention system has effectively combated bushfires, incidents such as the 2019-2020 bushfire season threatened to strain the country’s resources and preparedness level. This bushfire season led to the loss of “28 human lives, over 1.25 billion animal lives, damaged over 3,000 homes (Yeung, 2020) and caused an economic loss of over $110 billion” (Deb et al., 2020, p.1). Therefore, this season serves as a warning of what the nation might experience in the future if it fails to implement and adopt effective climate policies. Therefore, in the context of bushfire management, this article seeks to create a strategic plan that will help people understand and prepare the health consequences when bushfire incidents occur in Australia.
The Strategic Plan Goals
To protect human life and wellbeing.
To prepare people for bushfires.
To identify populations at greater risks when bushfire seasons occur.
To develop coordinated and collaborative strategies for bushfire management.
To identify custodians responsible for initiating bushfire mitigation plans.
Prevention Strategies
The prevention strategies will involve the communities to combat bushfires through the Mobilizing for Action Through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) model. The intervention strategies will educate the communities on bushfire prevention that will lead to reduced health impacts. According to Collins et al. (2015), human-caused ignitions, either deliberate or accidental, are the major causes of bushfires in Australia, which calls for community education to address the issue. The education will provide people with a better understanding of bushfire health risks and how they can manage bushfires. The communities will be educated on how to probe landscapes to understand where bushfires are more likely to occur. Deb et al. (2020) discuss that bushfires are caused by the combination of “hot weather, fuel availability, and an ignition source” (p.2). The availability of vegetation, which acts as fuel, the increasing temperatures and high winds cause the fire to spread uncontrollably. Thus, focusing on community education will help minimize the possibility of fire occurrences and their spread if it occurs. Moreover, this education will also help people prepare to combat bushfire fires.
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As noted earlier, bushfires in Australia occur more during the summer. Therefore, the prevention strategies will educate the communities on how to prepare before the bushfire season. The community will be educated to collaboratively make bushfire preparation plans, which will keep them prepared for bushfires. The plan will incorporate various preparation techniques, such as preparing their property. The preparations will entail trimming tree branches near their homesteads and along pavements, clear their roof gutters of leaves, trimming grassed areas or keeping them green, and having water hoses in their homes. Likewise, the community members will also be educated on creating a household plan that will enable them to probe the situation to decide whether to leave early or stay back. This emergency kit will help the community residents evaluate their health needs before deciding whether to vacate or not. According to UNEP (2020), elderly people and those with underlying conditions, such as cardiorespiratory or chronic diseases, and children are more vulnerable to health implications caused by bushfires. Therefore, having an emergency kit will help people assess their situations before bushfire calamity hits.
Likewise, people will also be educated on how to read fire danger ratings, which indicates the magnitude of bushfire if it occurred. Thus, educating people on how to interpret the fire danger rating chart could help them assess their danger levels related to bushfires and act appropriately (NSW Rural Fire Service, 2019). These ratings are forecasted daily by the Bureau of Meteorology, which helps people stay informed about their local conditions. Anderson-Berry et al. (2018) note that despite these warnings, people tend to ignore them, especially when they have several experiences with bushfires or when there have been numerous warnings about potential bushfires that never happen. When people have been warned severally about impending bushfires that never happen, they are likely to develop warning fatigue of sorts, leading to ignorance (Anderson-Berry et al. 2018). However, with the increasing climatic changes, bushfire disasters are expected to happen increasingly; thus, communities should never let their guard down. Therefore, the education plan will educate people on reading and interpreting fire danger rating charts and emphasizing the need to heed these warnings.
The Evaluation Plan
Several strategies will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the prevention plans taught in the education program. Continuous evaluations, especially during summer on-sets, will be conducted to ensure that the plan is effective. For evaluations, firstly, the local rural fire service departments provide crucial information on their websites on how people can prepare for bushfires. Some have templates that people could use to create their bushfire survival plans. Evaluating the number of downloads of the templates and the number of daily visitors in the rural fire service departments’ websites will help determine whether people seek to keep updated about their local conditions. Likewise, people's engagement in preparing their property, such as trimming grasses or keeping green, clearing tree branches near their homesteads, or vacating their homes when alarms are raised, will also indicate the success of the education plan. Moreover, a reduction in human-ignited known cases of bushfires by 20% within the first year of this education program will also indicate that the risks have been managed to an appropriate scale.
Appropriate revisions to the plan will be made if the proposed prevention plan will be deemed ineffective. If it is determined that the bushfire risks have been ineffective, modifications to the ongoing education program will be made. Signs of the program's ineffectiveness will include laxity with people to prepare their property despite warnings, failure to create bushfire survival plans, and failure to achieve the 20% reduction levels in human-ignited cases bushfires.
In conclusion, implementing these prevention strategies will help minimize bushfire occurrences due to human actors. Likewise, the intervention strategies will also help prepare for bushfires if they arise, leading to minimal brushfires’ adverse health effects.
References
Anderson-Berry, L., Achilles, T., Panchuk, S., Mackie, B., Canterford, S., Leck, A., & Bird, D. K. (2018). Sending a message: How significant events have influenced the warnings landscape in Australia. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction , 30 , 5–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.03.005
Collins, K. M., Price, O. F., & Penman, T. D. (2015). Spatial patterns of wildfire ignitions in south-eastern Australia. International Journal of Wildland Fire , 24 (8), 1098. https://doi.org/10.1071/wf15054
Deb, P., Moradkhani, H., Abbaszadeh, P., Kiem, A. S., Engström, J., Keellings, D., & Sharma, A. (2020). Causes of the Widespread 2019–2020 Australian Bushfire Season. Earth’s Future , 8 (11). https://doi.org/10.1029/2020ef001671
Ghosh, P. (2020, March 4). Climate change boosted Australia's fire risk by 30%. BBC News . https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51742646#:~:text=Scientists%20have%20published%20the%20first
NSW Rural Fire Service. (2019). Fire Danger Ratings - NSW Rural Fire Service . Nsw.gov.au. https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/plan-and-prepare/fire-danger-ratings
UNEP. (2020, January 22). Ten impacts of the Australian bushfires . UN Environment. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/ten-impacts-australian-bushfires#:~:text=The%20effects%20of%20smoke%20exposure
Walter, C. M., Schneider ‐ Futschik, E. K., Knibbs, L. D., & Irving, L. B. (2020). Health impacts of bushfire smoke exposure in Australia. Respirology . https://doi.org/10.1111/resp.13798
