Towards Fire-adaptive Communities in Australia: A Framework to Address Rapid and Slow Onset Fire Emergencies into an Uncertain Future

There are highly complex factors at play – at national, regional and highly localized levels – that affect how well people can survive and, even, thrive alongside fire in the Australian landscape. One interesting concept gaining traction internationally is that of people ‘co-existing with fire’, or ‘fire-adaptive communities’. The aim of communities becoming ‘fire-adaptive’ is to reduce the vulnerabilities of both people and ecosystems to wildfire, whilst allowing fires to burn on the landscape when and where they are needed. The aim of this research project is to develop a framework for fire-adaptive communities in an Australian context, exploring whether fire-adaptive strategies could reduce community vulnerabilities, and if so, how, and in what ways. Three of the key concepts that underpin this research – ‘community’, ‘emergency’ and ‘adaptation’ – are defined using a more-than-human theoretical approach. These definitions bridges more-than-human, decolonisation, and climate change adaptation theories, and are used to examine current and adaptative approaches to fire within Australian landscapes. The literature review then explores both the narratives about people, landscape and fire that are derived from a range of Australian ‘visions’ of the landscape, and the adaptations to fire that have arisen as a result. It then examines the development of alternative, potentially adaptive, fire management models in both academia and in government policy, and how they frame the entangled relationships between people, landscape, and fire. The research has been designed with two stages, with each mapped to a research objective. The research utilized qualitative mixed methods to gather data. Stage 1 of this research identifies principles and practices of fire-adaptive communities appropriate to an Australian context by interviewing community fire education practitioners. Three key themes emerge from the data collected in this stage. The first is that (re)building cross-community relationships – between people, between people and place, and between people and governance – is an important step in becoming fire-adaptive. The second theme is the importance of cross-community co-production and co-implementation of adaptive initiatives to help facilitate knowledge, plan actions, and solve problems into the future. The third theme is the importance of effectively harnessing and addressing the critical tensions that arose from asymmetrical power relationships within communities. These critical tensions provide the potential to either enable, or be a barrier to, fire-adaptive approaches. Using this framework, Stage 2 explores the processes through which two case study communities are seeking to become fire adaptive. The two cases featured are both community-led initiatives that aim to reduce community vulnerabilities to bushfires. The first, from Ku-ring-gai NSW, was led by the local area’s council, while the second, from Kangaroo Valley NSW, was led by self-organised residents. The various drivers and enablers identified in these case studies provide insights that might assist communities more broadly to develop the capacities, tools and structures to begin taking fire-adaptive approaches. Both case studies demonstrated the importance of including diverse knowledge and expertise in their program design and development. While emergency management knowledge was important, so too were ecological, architectural, legal, economic, and social science knowledges. Both initiatives were able to point to successes in their approaches. Both were also built on continuous evaluation to develop their initiatives and ensure ongoing relevance and extended reach. These research findings are synthesized to develop a model for the principles and practices of fire-adaptive community initiatives that aim to bring about systemic changes in how communities survive and thrive with fire. Finally, the thesis concludes by outlining a framework to facilitate the broad adoption of fire-adaptive communities in Australia. This framework is presented with 16 recommendations on the changes required to achieve this transformational change. These recommendations are aimed at four audiences - community organisations, community development and/or community education programs, researchers, and policy makers.