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Victoria Country Hour

How do people decide whether to stay or go in bushfires?

Libby Price

A Country Fire Authority truck sits in front of flames while fighting a bushfire at the Bunyip Sate Forest near the township of Tonimbuk, Victoria on Saturday, February 7, 2009.(

AAP: Andrew Brownbill


One of the first things people tend to lose in emergency situations such as fires is their common sense.

And that can be deadly. Dr Jim McLennan is a psychologist working with the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre through La Trobe University.

He's studied decision-making under imminent wildfire threat: how people decide whether to stay and defend or leave.

Dr McLennan's report concluded that most of the 223 interviewees who stayed and defended did so because this was their wildfire safety plan, and they believed that they would be successful despite the predicted extreme fire danger weather.

In 79% of cases, defence was successful; for the remaining 21% the house was destroyed and several lives were imperilled. Of the 216 who left for a safer location only 39% said that this was their wildfire safety plan; for most, the action of leaving was triggered by realisation of the imminent threat posed by the fire; 36% self-evacuated under hazardous conditions.