Bulletin

Issue: January/February 2004

News

New Centre helps fight bushfires

La Trobe University scientists are playing important roles in a new Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre established to improve all aspects of preventing and fighting bushfires.

The Centre was launched in Melbourne recently by Science Minister, Mr Peter McGauran.

He said Australia was a highly flammable country, where bushfires can devastate the lives of people and wildlife.

'We need a coordinated approach to what is a national problem,' he said. 'A key strength of the CRC is the makeup of its participants. It has not only brought together Commonwealth and State-based experts, but collaborative links have been developed with research organisation in the USA, Israel, Scotland, Germany, South Africa, and Canada.

Mr McGauran said the Australian government was contributing $25 million over the seven year life of the bushfire CRC, adding to total cash and in-kind resources of $100 million.

La Trobe University senior lecturer in Psychological Science, Dr Mary Omodei, leads a research team investigating two vital aspects of fighting bushfires. One concerns the recruiting and retention of volunteer fire fighters and the other the safety aspects of decision making while fires are in progress.

Dr Omodei has worked in bushfire research for a number of years and played a major role in developing the use of tiny cameras in fire fighters' helmets to enable those at central control to have a clearer picture of what is happening at a fire front.

She says that fire fighting volunteers are declining at such a rate that there could be a serious lack of volunteers within a decade. 'Part of our research is aimed at better understanding individual, community, and demographic factors which impact on recruiting and retaining volunteers.

'These factors are not well understood, but there is evidence to suggest that they range from motivational and personality characteristics of the individual volunteer to structural and legal aspects of the roles available within volunteer organisations.

'To enhance the number of suitably skilled volunteers it is important that the full range of such factors be identified and appropriate strategies be implemented.

'The other part of our research pertains to decision making and the safety of fire fighters. We all know of the tragedies that have occurred in the past and our research aims to eliminate, or at least minimize, the chances of such tragedies re-occurring.

'Despite heavy reliance on fire prediction and hazard models, and fire control and suppression technologies, fire fighting is ultimately a human activity requiring individual fire fighters to form risk assessments on the spot and to initiate courses of action.

'Fire fighter safety, both in bushfires and brigade activities and training, requires that individuals be aware of, and give adequate attention to, the safety implication of any decisions they might implement.

'Previous research suggests that human decision-making ability deteriorates in rapidly changing and relatively unpredictable situations such as a bushfire. It is unclear what factors cause such a decline in decision-making ability, particularly in regard to threats to safety.

'There is evidence to suggest that such factors range from inherent limitations of cognitive processing abilities through stress and overload, to pervasive effects of an organisation's overall safety climate.

'To optimise safety relevant decision making, it is important that the full range of causes of impaired decision making be identified and recommendations and guidelines be developed to counter their effects. Such recommendations and guidelines relate not only to operational procedures, but also to the design of operational decision support, and to brigade activities and training situations more generally,' Dr Omodei says.

Her team comprises Dr Ken Greenwood, Dr Geoff Cumming, Dr Jim McLennan and Dr Bob Jamieson from La Trobe's Department of Psychological Science, Dr Rosemary Wearing from La Trobe's Department of Sociology, and Dr Alex Wearing of the University of Melbourne's Department of Psychology.

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