Disaster Planning and gender mainstreaming: Black saturday bushfires

This paper explores natural hazards and disaster vulnerability from a gender mainstreaming perspective. A focus is assessing capabilities and vulnerabilities to inform disaster reduction policy and service development. Community development issues in the Black Saturday bushfires in Australia are discussed, using the transcripts from the Bushfires Royal Commission as a primary data source. A focus is on two of the worst hit communities of Kinglake and Marysville, both located in the Shire of Murrindindi, with reference to Strathewen in a neighbouring shire. These three townships accounted for over half primary data source. A focus is on two of the worst hit communities of Kinglake and Marysville, both located in the Shire of Murrindindi, with reference to Strathewen in a neighboring Shire. These three townships accounted for over half of the lives lost in the bushfires.