Fire safety engineering approaches to bushfire evacuation

摘要

Since the Black Saturday fires in Victoria, Australian emergency officials have emphasised evacuation planning and preparation, but such planning can fail to consider and account for multiple evacuation scenarios. This includes 'credible "worst case" scenarios' which 'stress current capabilities'. Worst case scenarios are those that pose the biggest threat, strain emergency response operations, and potentially endanger people. For example, rapidly spreading fire conditions can block roads originally allocated as evacuation routes and leave residents trapped. Fires can also cause power losses, hindering the receipt and implementation of evacuation orders. In such cases, evolving fire conditions affect evacuations. This should be considered when planning for bushfire evacuation -especially when assessing the robustness and resourcing of a plan and developing contingency plans.