Predicting delay in residents’ decisions on defending v. evacuating through antecedents of decision avoidance

This article builds on findings from a synthesis of fire social science research that was published from 2000 to 2010 to understand what has been learned more recently about public response to wildfires. Two notable changes were immediately noted in the fairly substantial number of articles published between 2011 and 2014. First, while over 90 % of the articles found in the initial synthesis were US-based studies, roughly half of the articles published since 2010 have been conducted outside the USA, the majority from Australia. Second, while the primary focus of earlier studies was on pre-fire mitigation efforts on both public and private lands, roughly half of the recent articles focused on dynamics during and after a fire. Overall, findings from the current review re-enforce key themes identified in the previous synthesis work and provide a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how certain variables, such as risk perception, may influence public response to wildfires. In addition, several important dynamics emerged across studies: the similarity of findings across countries, increased work across the temporal gradient, the importance of social interactions and of place attachment in shaping response, the need to take local knowledge and context into account, and the importance of financial support. These patterns suggest that while no single outreach approach or policy is likely to be effective everywhere or for everyone, efforts that facilitate development of relationships, within communities and between community members and fire personnel, can contribute to increased preparedness at the individual and community level by facilitating information exchange and helping to build a sense of community.

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“…However, the majority of Australian articles focus on homeowner decision-making during a fire [13,57,[64][65][66][67][68][69].…”

Section: Experiencing and Recovering From A Wildfirementioning

confidence: 98%

“…Interestingly, initial research to understand this delayed decision-making has shown that risk perception is not influential in this choice. Rather people who plan to wait and see tend to see equal benefits between evacuating and defending their property [68].…”

Section: Experiencing and Recovering From A Wildfirementioning

confidence: 99%

Community Wildfire Preparedness: a Global State-of-the-Knowledge Summary of Social Science Research

McCaffrey

2015

Curr Forestry Rep

158

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“…Practical response over many years to awareness campaigns is widely acknowledged to be poor [9, 10, 12, 34, 77, 87, 88]. Figures reported by the South Australian Country Fire Service in their Annual Reports do indicate improvement, but numbers clearly demonstrate the persistently low correlation between awareness and positive behaviour change.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expanding protection motivation theory: investigating an application to animal owners and emergency responders in bushfire emergencies

et al. 2017

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BackgroundProtection Motivation Theory (PMT) was developed by Rogers in 1975, to describe how individuals are motivated to react in a self-protective way towards a perceived health threat. Rogers expected the use of PMT to diversify over time, which has proved true over four decades. The purpose of this paper is to explore how PMT can be used and expanded to inform and improve public safety strategies in natural hazards. As global climate change impacts on the Australian environment, natural hazards seem to be increasing in scale and frequency, and Emergency Services’ public education campaigns have necessarily escalated to keep pace with perceived public threat. Of concern, is that the awareness-preparedness gap in residents’ survival plans is narrowing disproportionately slowly compared to the magnitude of resources applied to rectify this trend. Practical applications of adaptable social theory could be used to help resolve this dilemma.DiscussionPMT has been used to describe human behaviour in individuals, families, and the parent-child unit. It has been applied to floods in Europe and wildfire and earthquake in the United States. This paper seeks to determine if an application of PMT can be useful for achieving other-directed human protection across a novel demographic spectrum in natural hazards, specifically, animal owners and emergency responders in bushfire emergencies.These groups could benefit from such an approach: owners to build and fortify their response- and self-efficacy, and to help translate knowledge into safer behaviour, and responders to gain a better understanding of a diverse demographic with animal ownership as its common denominator, and with whom they will be likely to engage in contemporary natural hazard management. Mutual collaboration between these groups could lead to a synergy of reciprocated response efficacy, and safer, less traumatic outcomes.SummaryEmergency services’ community education programs have made significant progress over the last decade, but public safety remains suboptimal while the magnitude of the awareness-preparedness gap persists. This paper examines an expanded, other-directed application of PMT to expand and enhance safer mitigation and response behaviour strategies for communities threatened by bushfire, which may ultimately help save human life.

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“…One study found that uncertainty about where the fire was located and how severe the risks might be led many to take a wait and see approach during the Black Saturday fires, only evacuating when some external event signaled that decisive action was needed, which was often an official or physical cue . Subsequent survey work found that respondents who saw staying and leaving as equally attractive options were less likely to indicate a clear plan to either stay and defend or leave early …”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? Or Should I Wait and See? Influences on Wildfire Evacuation Decisions

2017

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As climate change has contributed to longer fire seasons and populations living in fire-prone ecosystems increase, wildfires have begun to affect a growing number of people. As a result, interest in understanding the wildfire evacuation decision process has increased. Of particular interest is understanding why some people leave early, some choose to stay and defend their homes, and others wait to assess conditions before making a final decision. Individuals who tend to wait and see are of particular concern given the dangers of late evacuation. To understand what factors might influence different decisions, we surveyed homeowners in three areas in the United States that recently experienced a wildfire. The Protective Action Decision Model was used to identify a suite of factors previously identified as potentially relevant to evacuation decisions. Our results indicate that different beliefs about the efficacy of a particular response or action (evacuating or staying to defend), differences in risk attitudes, and emphasis on different cues to act (e.g., official warnings, environmental cues) are key factors underlying different responses. Further, latent class analysis indicates there are two general classes of individuals: those inclined to evacuate and those inclined to stay, and that a substantial portion of each class falls into the wait and see category.

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Predicting delay in residents’ decisions on defending v. evacuating through antecedents of decision avoidance

Cited by 47 publications

References 33 publications

Community Wildfire Preparedness: a Global State-of-the-Knowledge Summary of Social Science Research

Community Wildfire Preparedness: a Global State-of-the-Knowledge Summary of Social Science Research

Expanding protection motivation theory: investigating an application to animal owners and emergency responders in bushfire emergencies

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? Or Should I Wait and See? Influences on Wildfire Evacuation Decisions

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