This project was commissioned and funded entirely by the NSW Rural Fire Service.

In October 2013, bushfires swept across parts of New South Wales, leaving a trail of destruction and loss. Following the fires, the NSW Rural Fire Service commissioned both the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and the Bushfire CRC to coordinate a field research task force, conducting community-focused research with a number of communities hit hard by the bushfires in the Blue Mountains, Southern Highlands and Port Stephens. The aim was to understand how people prepared for and reacted to these disasters and assist future development of emergency management responses, community education and public safety initiatives.

This research had two separate – but interconnected – components:

• a series of interviews with residents in a number of fire impacted communities, and
• an online survey (also targeted to those communities but open more broadly to fire impacted areas in NSW).