Published works

Bushfires pose significant threats to life and property in many parts of Australia. The frequency and intensity of bushfires are increasing over time in association with worsening weather conditions that support extreme fires (Dowdy, 2018) and ongoing settlement growth (Allen, 2018). High bushfire risks generally occur when fires interact with human settlements, where housing and other structures are near flammable vegetation and associated impacts such as ember attack.

This report is an output of the wider project “Integrating Urban Planning with Disaster Risk Reduction” funded by the Bushfire Natural Hazard Cooperative Research Centre. It is part of a critical review of the integration of emergency management and urban planning in South Australia focusing on the detail of bushfire treatment mechanisms proposed in the State Planning Reform Document Draft Planning and Design Code – Phase 2 Rural Areas (DPTI, 2019b) released in October 2019 by the Department of Transport, Planning and Infrastructure, and State Planning Commission. In parallel, the review also considered other relevant regulations and codes such as AS 3959-2018 Building in Bushfire Prone Areas (Standards Australia - Committee FP-020, 2019) and Ministerial Building Standard MBS008 Designated Bushfire Prone Areas – Draft October 2019 (DPTI, 2019a). The present report provides a basis for later work in subsequent stages that develops new approaches and improvements in collaboration with practitioners.

The review begins by setting out the conceptual and theoretical basis of integration and moves to presenting a general description of bushfires and the main factors that contribute to bushfire risks in the built environment. Then, it sets out the main elements of investigation relating to the integration of bushfire risk reduction in the built environment, summarising the adopted research approach and the role of this report in the wider research project. Then the report moves to critically analysing the outcomes of applying these integration principles to bushfire risks as they are dealt with by the draft Code. Findings point to elements of the Code that could be improved to reduce risks across the areas of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability.