Bushfires: What do your children know?

I follow Dr Briony Towers on Twitter. She produced an article which was recently published entitled: ‘Children’s knowledge of bushfire emergency response’, International Journal of Wildland Fire 2015, 24, pg. 179-189.

For a long time I have been concerned by the lack of, what I perceive at least, the education of children in WA on matters of emergency issues including house and bush fire education. I am aware that the DFES Heritage Centre in Perth does conduct a very good educational program however.

Dr Towers academic paper was funded by the Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre and the University of Tasmania.

You can read the article in full here but for the purpose of this entry I have taken the main points that stood out to me personally and highlighted them here. As a side note: I found the subject matter so interesting, that my coffee went cold – those who know me well know that is a very rare occurrence!

1. In the aftermath of the Black Saturday bushfire disaster, the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission recommended that bushfire education be made a formal part of the Australian national curriculum.

2. However, accommodating children’s knowledge in bushfire education is hampered by a lack of research on how children conceptualise bushfire hazards.

3. To address this gap, this paper presented a detailed qualitative analysis of children’s knowledge of bushfire hazards with a specific focus on emergency response.

4. Research was taken from across four bushfire-prone locations in south-eastern Australia, 26 focus group interviews were conducted with 87 children aged between 8 and 12 years.

5. To better understand the construction of children’s knowledge, individual interviews were also conducted with 37 parents.

Australian children have been marginalised in both academic and political discussions of bushfire community safety.

To date, no research has investigated how children understand bushfire emergency response and the only official advice relating to children is that they should not be present during a bushfire event.

1. There is a need for evidence-based education programs that provide children with the requisite knowledge and skills for responding safely to bushfire emergencies.

2. Children’s knowledge of leaving was structured around three key tasks: deciding what to take, choosing a destination, and identifying triggers.

3. The task of deciding what to take sprang from children’s awareness that if they did leave, their home might be destroyed. When deciding what to take, children listed a wide variety of special belongings including toys, photographs, jewellery and other family heirlooms: for most children, however, pets that took first priority.

4. Although most children planned to gather their special belongings when faced with an actual bushfire threat, some children had packed a ‘firebox’ in anticipation of a future event.

Children advocating a ‘wait and see’ strategy lacked an awareness of the dangers of late evacuation. For example, when asked what they would do if the fire was blocking their evacuation route, some children suggested they would go ‘around’ or ‘through’ the fire, reflecting a lack of knowledge about the intensity and magnitude of both smoke and radiant heat.

Thomas: You could probably just drive straight through the fire. It would

probably only, like, peel the paint off the car and you could just drive a bit

faster through the fire. (11 years, Bothwell)

1. Other children suggested fleeing in the opposite direction, reflecting a lack of knowledge about the speed at which bushfires can travel.

2. During focus groups and interviews with parents, the accuracy and sophistication of children’s knowledge of leaving was largely determined by their participation in household emergency planning.

3. When children had been involved in planning activities and discussions, they tended to advocate leaving early to a destination that was far removed from the area under threat.

4. By contrast, when children had not been involved in household bushfire planning, they often chose a destination close to the house or advocated dangerous ‘wait and see’ strategies.

Their knowledge of how to respond when the fire arrives was often misconceived. Many children suggested that they would fight the fire front itself with the explicit aim of preventing the fire from reaching the house. Moreover, if this proved unsuccessful, they would initiate a last-minute evacuation.

Children often perceived bodies of water (e.g. dams, swimming pools, rivers and bathtubs) as safe shelters because they believed that the water would act as a non-flammable protective barrier between them and the fire. Sadly, although some examples exist where people have survived by sheltering in a dam, swimming pool or river, these locations do not provide sufficient protection from smoke or radiant heat and should only be considered as an absolute last resort. Meanwhile, sheltering in the bath or bathroom is a major cause of bushfire fatalities.

On Black Saturday, for example, 46 of the 173 fatalities had been sheltering in baths or bathrooms at the time of death. Consequently, sheltering in baths or bathrooms is not recommended under any circumstances.When children had been afforded a high level of involvement, they exhibited more sophisticated understandings that were largely consistent with the advice of Australian fire agencies.

1. Age did not exert a direct influence on the sophistication of children’s knowledge: however, in some cases, it had influenced parent decisions about the extent to which they had involved their children, suggesting that age is a key moderating variable.

2. Given that children are far more likely to be killed or injured in a house fire than a bushfire it is essential that bushfire education does not undermine this success.

3. This will require education programs that highlight the fundamental differences between house-fire and bushfire emergencies and explicitly dispel any notion that house-fire escape plans can be appropriately applied in the bushfire context.

4. Ensuring that children understand the physical characteristics of bushfire hazards will likely assist this process.

5. Although Australian children have been marginalised and excluded from academic and political discussions of community bushfire safety, this research suggests that they should be afforded a more significant role.

6. Although children’s knowledge was often characterised by gaps and misconceptions, they also demonstrated a capacity for understanding the fundamental principles of safe emergency response, particularly when they had been involved in household bushfire planning.

7. Children represent a major resource for the development of safer, more resilient communities.