Student researcher

Rachel Westcott
Dr Rachel Westcott Research Leader

This research sought to discover and recommend proactive strategies to strengthen and improve human safety and well-being in a changing climate of natural hazards. People’s ability to navigate their daily lives within an environment of worsening natural hazards is an adaptive public health and safety priority - given the predicted global increase in frequency and severity of extreme weather events. There is an urgent need to strengthen and normalise people’s preparedness behaviour, and to connect it with an unequivocal understanding of the benefits of such changes. Enhancing people's adaptive responses will help to avoid, or at least minimise, associated human trauma and tragedy. This project was undertaken on the Lower Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, a location with diverse animal ownership, a 15-year history of severe fires and a resourceful regional community.

This project was completed in March 2018.

The Interactions Between Emergency Responders and Animal Owners in Bushfire: Improving Community Preparedness and Response Outcomes
18 Aug 2015
The purpose of this study is to develop best practice methods for preparedness and response practices in a...
Bushfire preparedness: how to become 'fire-fit' without really noticing
29 Jun 2017
Narrowing the awareness-action gap: cultivating a culture of routine all-hazards preparedness through public...
FUELS ain’t FUELS! Crops, “conservation farming” and cropland fires
18 Sep 2018
"Firebreaks and spraying fence lines mightn’t stop the fire but give you something to burn back to. This...
31 Aug 2020
Key findings: Easily achievable fire-fitness strategies normalise preparedness to become a routine part of...