Community Bushfire Safety brings together in one accessible and comprehensive volume the results of the most important community safety research being undertaken within the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre. Using perspectives deriving from social science, economics and law, it complements the extensive literature already existing on bushfires, which ranges from ecology and fire behaviour to information about emergency management. In doing so, the book supports the increasing emphasis on community safety and the vital role it has to play in bushfire management.

Managing community safety requires a diversity of knowledge and an understanding of the many social processes that shape and ultimately determine a community’s resilience to bushfire. The wide range of issues covered in this volume reflects this diversity, including research into gender and vulnerability; the law and its implications for public/fire agency interactions; the arsonist’s rationale; the influence of the media; the role of economics in bushfire management and decision-making; understanding declines in fire brigade volunteerism; bushfire safety policy and its implementation; the effectiveness of community education and risk reduction schemes; and modes of building ignition.

This is a book that will be accessible to practitioners, policy-makers, researchers and students. While the research reported has been undertaken entirely in Australia, much of the material is generic and is likely to be relevant and useful to those dealing with community bushfire safety elsewhere.

For copies of the Project Vesta go to CSIRO Publishing: www.publish.csiro.au/pid/5819.htm