fire Review Protective Decision-Making in Bushfire Part 2: A Rapid Systematic Review of the ‘Leave Early’ Literature Kenneth William Strahan 1,* and John Gilbert 2 1 Strahan Research, Level 3, 157 Spring Street, Melbourne 3000, Australia 2 Country Fire Authority, 8 Lakeside Drive, East Burwood 3151, Australia; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: In Australia, residents can choose to remain to defend their property against bushfire but, since the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, considerable emphasis is placed on leaving early, well in advance of a bushfire. However, many householders delay their protective decision. The insights offered by the literature into how and why some people leave early before their personal safety is threatened can inform bushfire safety policy and practice. This systematic review reports the findings of 90 papers selected from 216 identified through a search of papers in Scopus, Science Direct and Google Scholar published between 1995 and May 2021 in English. This review establishes the reasons people leave early; the influence of official and unofficial warnings; gender and other demographics; the influence of self-evacuation archetypes; planning and preparation; the influence of children and other dependents and pets; triggers initiating leaving; factors impeding and facilitating leaving; and policy issues around early leaving. This review also details 12 seminal studies that capture much of the evidence on the decision to leave early. Keywords: wildfire; bushfire; systematic review; leave early; evacuation; protective action; decision- making; safety policy Citation: Strahan, K.W.; Gilbert, J. Protective Decision-Making in Bushfire Part 2: A Rapid Systematic Review of the ‘Leave Early’ Literature. 1. Introduction Fire 2021, 4, 42. https://doi.org/ Increasing wildfire in North America, bushfire in Australia and forest fire in Europe 10.3390/fire4030042 reflect a growing threat to individuals [1–3] worldwide. Increasing frequency and severity of wildfire threaten communities and assets including homes, property and infrastruc- Academic Editor: Alistair M. S. Smith ture [4]. The 2009 Victorian Black Saturday bushfires killed 173 people and injured 414. Four hundred and fifty thousand hectares were burnt, and 3500 building destroyed includ- Received: 17 June 2021 ing more than 2000 homes [5]. The 2019–2020 Black Summer bushfires burnt approximately Accepted: 29 July 2021 Published: 2 August 2021 18.6 million hectares along the Australian east coast in New South Wales and Victoria and into South Australia. The bushfires were linked to at least 34 fatalities and destroyed Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral over 6000 structures including 3000 homes. The south coast of New South Wales, the with regard to jurisdictional claims in Blue Mountains near Sydney, East Gippsland in Victoria and Kangaroo Island off South published maps and institutional affil- Australia were all impacted [6,7]. Catastrophic wildfires have also resulted in fatalities and iations. destruction in Europe including Portugal and Greece [8], and the USA and Canada [9]. In the United States the Californian Camp Fire (2018) killed 85 people and destroyed almost 14,000 residences, including the town of Paradise. At that time, it was the most destructive and caused the greatest number of fatalities of any fire in Californian history [10]. The evidence suggests that more frequent, intense, large, and destructive wildfire Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. result from a complex interaction of factors. Population growth in peri-urban or wild- This article is an open access article land/urban interface areas (WUI) mean increasing numbers are living close to bushland. distributed under the terms and Expanding populations into areas that border highly flammable vegetation, especially conditions of the Creative Commons in the WUI [11], significantly increases the number of houses at risk [12,13]. Housing Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// growth in peri-urban areas increases the likelihood of bushfires because they are primarily creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ human-caused [14–16]. Growing evidence suggests that more catastrophic wildfire will 4.0/). be driven by climate change related loss of rainfall and higher average temperatures [17] Fire 2021, 4, 42. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire4030042 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/fire Fire 2021, 4, 42 2 of 23 both internationally [18,19] and in Australia [20–22], including rural and urban interface areas [17,23,24]. Resource constraints on the application of improved land management practices and effective vegetation management [25,26] have also contributed to the growing wildfire threat. This report begins by describing Australian bushfire safety policy as enabling Aus- tralian householders living in bushfire-prone areas a choice of remaining and defending their property or evacuating in advance of the threat. Since the 2009 Black Saturday bush- fires in Victoria there has been a stronger emphasis placed on leaving early in most bushfire situations. The policy position strongly advocates clear decisions to stay, or leave, well in advance of a bushfire, and that these are taken before a threat is imminent. However, this is not always the case. Householders delay their decision to remain and defend or evacuate for a range of reasons, including assessing the circumstances of the bushfire and choosing an appropriate course of action. There is much to be learned from the literature about how and why some people are decisive about their decision to leave before a bushfire becomes a threat to their personal safety, and why others delay this decision. To extract these learnings a rapid systematic review of the ‘leave early’ literature has been undertaken and reported here, building on the learnings that have been identified in two previous reviews of community safety issues in wildfire [1,2]. ‘Leave early’ is defined; a process of systematic review is described, including databases searched, and inclusion and exclusion criteria; review of papers, reports and other materials and assessment of their quality; and synthesis of all materials in a narrative review. Improved community education policies and programs promoting community safety through enhanced preparation and planning and effective and safe response during a bushfire event depends on the emergency services better understanding peoples’ protective action decisions and behaviours when threatened by bushfire. This report contributes to understanding why some people ‘leave early’ before, or as a bushfire threatens their town or village. The purpose of the rapid systematic review of literature is to: address a research gap in the understanding of ‘leave early’ to develop approaches that better reflect how people are likely to behave during a bushfire; and extend the body of evidence that drives the development of new and existing community safety programs and informs decision making (targeting and tailoring programs to meet community needs). The research question is: Why do people at threat from a bushfire decide to leave immediately they become aware of the bushfire threat (before or when it reaches their town or village)? Data collected in CFA post-season bushfire research (n = 3542) over the four years between 2018 and 2021 have confirmed the importance of addressing this question. An un- weighted average of 33.8% of respondents would leave as soon as they were aware of a bushfire threatening their town or suburb, 11.8% intend to stay and defend their property and 45.4% would delay their decision. The remainder would have left in advance of any fire on a day of high fire danger (8.1%) or did not know what they would do (0.9%). The review draws on identified peer-reviewed studies and materials and reports in the grey literature, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies, to establish why people leave early from a bushfire threat. Australian Bushfire Safety Policy and Protective Response The 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, Australia, caused 173 fatalities and the destruction of 2029 homes resulting in substantial changes to bushfire safety policy and practice framed around the message ‘Prepare, Act, Survive’ (PAS) [5,27]. Australian bushfire safety policy aims at greater predictability and reduction in bushfire risk, and to improve response capability, enhancing safety and survival. The policy promotes leaving, well before a bushfire becomes a threat, as the safest option, and encourages pre-event planning to support those actions. Fire Danger Ratings (FDRs) forecast bushfire danger at least 24 h in advance and people are advised, for the most dangerous days, to leave even in the absence of a local bushfire [28]. The policy recommends careful monitoring of bushfire Fire 2021, 4, 42 3 of 23 conditions, including official bushfire warnings, to avoid dangerous late evacuation [29]. Emergency authorities’ hope that as part of accepting shared responsibility for their safety, householders will take their advice during a bushfire. Similarly, it can be reasonably expected that the emergency authorities will incorporate the attitudes, needs and responses of householders into their operations and their education and engagement policies and programs [30–32]. Householders are responsible for making critical protective decisions to remain and defend or evacuate from an imminent bushfire threat [27,30,33]. Research indicates that a satisfactorily prepared house can provide safe refuge from bushfire and appropriately equipped