Bushfire & Community Resilience

All hazards

Risks spanning across multiple hazard types and across the emergency management system.

Biosecurity

Exotic animal and plant disease outbreaks and pest incursions can have significant economic, community and environmental impacts.

Bushfire and other fires

Bushfire and other fires have potential consequences including loss of life and property, and damage to infrastructure and environment.

Climate change

Risks include more days of extreme heat, harsher fire weather, less rainfall and rising sea levels.

Communications disruption

Communications services are crucial in keeping communities safe, connected and informed before, during and after emergencies.

Cyber security and ICT systems failure

Risks relating to the confidentiality, availability, integrity of information and data and disruption of services.

Energy supply disruption

Reliable energy supplies are critical to many social and economic activities.

Flood

Major flood events have occurred in Victoria every 10 to 20 years, with much of the increasing risk created by human settlement.

Hazardous material incident

Potential risks relate to many places where Victoria’s hazardous materials are manufactured, stored, transported, used and disposed.

Heatwave

Heatwaves are considered to be the ‘silent killer’ of extreme weather events and are the leading cause of weather-related deaths in Australia.

Public health emergency

Risks may relate to the delivery of public health services, with impacts on community health and wellbeing and potential for loss of life.

Supply chain disruption

Geopolitical, environmental, economic, societal and infrastructure-related shocks can expose supply chains to wide ranging consequences.

Terrorism and extremism

Attacks carried out by individuals or non-state groups with ideological, political or religious goals can result in loss of life, severe injury and/or material damage.

Water supply disruption

Risks include collection, storage, treatment, delivery, availability and allocation of water for consumption and environmental, recreation and cultural uses.

Workforce and resourcing

Risks may relate to human resource supply and skills to support emergency management operations.

JOIN THE ABC (External link) AND NATURAL HAZARDS RESEARCH AUSTRALIA (External link) FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF DISASTER RISK REDUCTION.

Wednesday 13 October 2021

12:00 pm - 1:15 pm AEDT

To help drive constructive and supportive conversations around the ABC’s new drama series FIRES (External link), this event will feature an expert panel of series consultants and researchers from Natural Hazards Research Australia.

Bringing you the latest information from the most recent research, your panel will unpack bushfire risk reduction through preparation, caring for your mental health and recovery, before answering the questions that matter most to you.

Tapping into key themes from the series, the panellists will explore the essential role of community in building resilience. From helping prepare children and supporting young volunteers, to learning from the experiences of both Black Saturday and the recent Black Summer.

About this event

Host: Kate Brady, After The Disaster podcast

Panellists:

Dr Rob Gordon is a clinical psychologist who has spent 35 years working with communities affected by disasters throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Dr Josh Whittaker is a geographer specialising in research on the vulnerability of human communities to bushfire (wildfire) and other natural hazards. He was a Research Fellow at the University of Wollongong's Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires from 2016 until February 2021, and is now the Coordinator Community Engagement at the NSW Rural Fire Service.
Dr Briony Towers is the co-director of LEADRRR and a former Research Fellow at RMIT University. For the past six years, she has served as a Chief Investigator on Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC project on child-centred disaster risk reduction. Her scholarship and practice is focussed on school-based education for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. Briony lives and works on the land of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation.
Nicky Haslinghouse is a Country Fire Authority (CFA) volunteer firefighter with the Mount Macedon fire brigade in Victoria, and the University of Melbourne’s Emergency Management and Critical Incident Specialist. Having grown-up in one of the most fire-prone areas of the State and joined CFA in her mid-twenties, she has held volunteer roles in community engagement, social media coordination and brigade management with CFA, and is deeply passionate about supporting high-risk communities to safely and effectively prepare for, respond to and recover from the impact of bushfire in the landscape
Red Cross Resilient Communities Representative.

Registration

Registration is free (External link)

You are encouraged to submit questions with your registration.

Topics of focus are:

Planning for the reality
Preparing children and young people
Trauma resilience: caring for mental health
Supporting our young fire fighters
The importance of keeping communities connected
The power of volunteering

You will also be able to submit questions on the day.

Fires

FIRES (External link) is a new 6-part ABC drama series inspired by the experiences of people and communities impacted by the 2019/20 Bushfires, ensuring that stories of resilience, hope and determination are not forgotten.

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Assurance in Emergency Management

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Fires

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