James Cook University's Centre for Disaster Studies has found that more than two-thirds of residents living in three bushfire-prone Townsville communities do not have an evacuation plan.
The alarming finding comes as Rural Fire Service Roma area director Phil Young warns that the fuel loads building up in that part of Queensland from successive La Ninas is reminiscent of the conditions that brought on one of the state's more intense bushfire seasons, in 2012-13.
The JCU research was commissioned by Queensland Fire and Emergency Services and comes from surveys conducted by JCU students of residents in Nome, Bluewater and Magnetic Island, each of which is a peri-urban community in proximity to bushland.
The results surprised Dr Yetta Gurtner, who said it was particularly concerning that people in the communities tend to be from an older demographic than the general Townsville population.
"There were also a lot of indications of medical illnesses and physical injuries, so in that context, these are more vulnerable people, or people who need help when it comes to an evacuation."
The survey also found that:
- Almost one in ten respondents (9.5 per cent) indicated they do not prepare for local bushfire hazards.
- 43 per cent of respondents rated the bushfire hazard in their locality as high or very high, but almost 80 per cent of respondents self-assessed the bushfire hazard to their personal dwelling/property as moderate, low and very low.
- In respect to local hazards (including bushfires) 52 per cent believed their neighbours were at risk, particularly in regards to cleaning up their property. Despite this, only one in five respondents felt it was important to talk to their neighbours about the issue, and;
- Over 23 per cent of respondents were sceptical about their local community's capacity to recover from a natural hazard in a short period of time.
Dr Gurtner said QFES had specified streets and residents in zones that they wanted to get the most information from, being the people considered most at risk in a fire.
She urged any resident living in an area at high risk of bushfire to make an evacuation plan and to be prepared in the event of an emergency.
"While a large percentage of those people surveyed did work from home or stayed at home, over 50 per cent worked elsewhere and would take anywhere between 25 minutes and an hour-and-a-half to get home," she said.
"If your house is under threat from fire and you're at work, you potentially wouldn't have a house to come back to.
"That's why we encourage those preventative measures like cleaning your gutters and cutting trees back. You at least then have some measure of protection for your house."
ALSO READ:
Dr Gurtner encouraged better communication with neighbours to build trust and become comfortable talking with them.
"If you are genuinely concerned about something, you shouldn't be afraid to raise a bushfire risk with your neighbour," she said.
QFES will now review the report and take its findings into consideration.
Speaking at a bushfire forum at Charleville, QFES's Phil Young said that from January 2012 to March 2013, 335 bushfires had been reported in Roma and Charleville fire areas, and there had been 674 incidents in total.
"Looking back to 2012-13, there had been record floods and fuel loads not seen since the 1950s," he said. "We're leading up to the same now - some properties are having their best growth of grass in 27 years."
Just like in 2011-12, flood debris is adding to the fuel load on the ground.