Householder decision-making under imminent wildfire threat: stay and defend or leave?

Abstract

The study examined aspects of decision-making that distinguish between those who stay and defend their property and those who leave for an assumed safer location when a community comes under imminent threat from a severe wildfire. The data were obtained from field interviews with 49 survivors of the Murrindindi wildfire (Victoria, Australia, 7 February 2009) in which 38 people perished and that destroyed the small township of Marysville. Uncertainty about the level of threat was a major feature of the decision-making context in the period immediately preceding the impact of the fire. The majority of those who stayed and defended did so because they were committed to this plan of action. For most of those who left, the action of leaving was triggered by realisation of the severe threat posed by the intensity or location of the fire.