An online quiz and profile tool is set to be piloted in Noosa to help residents better prepare for the bushfire season.
Noosa Council is partnering with Victorian-based startup FireThrive and Queensland tech-hub Firetech Connect to develop a behaviour change pilot program.
Called How prepared are you for a bushfire?, the quiz is made up of 25 multiple choice questions and takes around 10 minutes to complete.
Council’s disaster management officer James Ulyate said the results would help better understand the community’s perceptions of bushfires.
“We’re looking forward to knowing who they trust in terms of emergency communication, and what their intended evacuation behaviour is,” he said.
Based on their quiz results, a personalised profile is generated to help the respondent address specific areas for improvement. This profile also includes personalised educational resources – like Q&A audio clips from a firefighter, and conversation tips on how to reach out to a neighbour.
Mr Ulyate said the pilot program would give council valuable insights into vulnerable areas of the community through anonymised data from FireThrive’s tool.
The pilot program forms part of a range of initiatives tackling bushfire preparedness through technology under the FireTech Connect program, led by tech entrepreneur Leigh Kelson and based at the Peregian Digital Hub.
They are currently investing in creating sensors, signalling and satellites to predict, prevent, fight and recover from bushfire emergencies
While drones, bushfire modelling and sensors from out of space will be useful to better plan and respond to bushfires in the future, there is one important piece of the puzzle missing: human behaviour.
“We can model and predict a lot of things, from an environments’ fuel load to wind change, but one of the hardest things to predict in a bushfire is how people will react,” FireTech Connect lead Leigh Kelson said.
“We’re really excited by what the start-up FireThrive is doing in this space – they’re using the latest research to help people to better prepare for worsening bushfires, and will save lives in the process.
“There is no one solution to tackling worsening bushfires, so we are proud to be attacking this problem from many angles.”
The tool is underpinned by Dr Ken Strahan’s 2018 research that analysed how people decide to stay or leave in a bushfire. After surveying more than 450 residents, Dr Strahan came up with seven archetypes – or personality types – that categorised peoples’ different values, beliefs and attitudes towards bushfires.
FireThrive is using these same archetypes in How prepared are you for a bushfire? to help Australians understand their unique trigger points when responding to a bushfire.
The pilot program will also give Noosa Shire Council valuable insights into vulnerable areas of their community through anonymised data from FireThrive’s tool.
“For example, if there are pockets of people who don’t think bushfires are a threat, or another pocket of people who require assistance to evacuate, as a council we’ll be able to create targeted educational campaigns and processes to help them to be better prepared in the future,” Mr Ulyate said.
“This behaviour change pilot program will add another tool to our kit to help Noosa residents to better prepare for bushfires, alongside drones, sensors and satellite imagery.”
Access the survey at quiz.firethrive.com
