Analysis: Fire alert system overhaul could boost awareness

Updated

High situational awareness from the cockpit is a matter of life and death for combat pilots locked in a dogfight or dodging anti-aircraft missiles.

Fighter pilots call it "holding the bubble".

To defeat an opponent or avoid destruction by enemy fire, the pilot must maintain high situational awareness (SA) to be fully aware of what is happening, and rapidly see the course of action that will bring victory or survival.

If you were sitting at the pub, with all due respect to our mates in Yarloop, on deck chairs drinking beers, saying 'good on you', watching fire trucks go through, downwind smelling the fire, and seeing the ash fall, I'm really sorry, but you knew it was coming. WA Emergency Services Minister Joe Francis

In the wake of the bushfire which claimed two lives and all but destroyed the West Australian town of Yarloop, WA Emergency Services Minister Joe Francis expressed his view that high SA was also critical to the survival of those facing bushfires.

"There is no substitute for personal situational awareness," Mr Francis told ABC radio on Wednesday.

"We stood in Perth here and we watched that fire after one o'clock, mushroom into this amazing firestorm cloud that started its own lightning, from Perth.

"You need to know what is going on and if you were sitting at the pub, with all due respect to our mates in Yarloop, on deck chairs drinking beers, saying 'good on you', watching fire trucks go through, downwind smelling the fire, and seeing the ash fall, I'm really sorry, but you knew it was coming."

Urging people to have better situational awareness sounds like commonsense advice, but developing it is a complex psychological process, fraught with vulnerabilities and fault lines.

The aviation industry and military have spent decades and millions of dollars pulling apart the concept of SA to see how it works, and how it can be built better and faster, and then maintained in rapidly changing, complex and confusing situations.

That effort could provide valuable insights into how simple changes to WA's current emergency alert system could dramatically improve the ability of residents to build the "personal situational awareness" the Emergency Services Minister sees as so vital.

Alerts only mentioned Yarloop 25 minutes before fire struck

Calla Wahlquist, writing in The Guardian Australia, provided an insight into the difficulty of decoding the current fire alerts, which appear open to the full spectrum of responses, from immediate understanding and action to confusion, denial and delay.

People viewing the same alert may elect to stay and defend or evacuate immediately, not just on the basis of their personal circumstances, but on their differing levels of understanding about what is happening, and the level of risk the fire poses.

In their current form, those alerts make the task of quickly building accurate situational awareness difficult and vulnerable to misperception and misunderstanding.

Much has already been made of the fact that warnings during the afternoon did not explicitly mention the town of Yarloop, at least until the fire was just 25 minutes from burning through the town.

But both the Emergency Services Minister and Fire Commissioner Wayne Gregson found it incomprehensible that people were not aware of what was about to unfold.

"We are always criticised in terms of the information and how we get it out to the community," Mr Gregson said at a media conference on Monday.

"The community complain if we put out information too early, that it doesn't affect them. The community complain if we put out information too late.

"I don't think there would have been anybody in that area of the whole fire, particularly in rural communities, that were not aware of the impending doom."

The leader's message to the people of Yarloop seemed clear: It's on you.

It is up to the individual to fully inform themselves about their level of preparedness and the risks in the situation developing around them.

It is the responsibility of residents to interrogate the warnings, and build that "personal situational awareness".

Situational awareness reliant on supplied information

But high SA is built out of information, included that provided by fire authorities, and has several dimensions.

Firstly, it is an awareness of what happens over time.

One researcher distilled it down to three time frames: Then, now and next.

Someone with high situational awareness understands what has happened, what is happening and what is going to happen next.

Secondly, it is an awareness that operates at three levels.

At its most basic, situational awareness means a person can perceive the information.

They notice what is going on. They recognise that there is a fire and they can read the warning that it is in their area. Just noticing is level one.

Level two means the person can comprehend the information. They can decode the list of streets in the alert. They understand where the fire is and what risk it might pose.

Level three is the critical step. The person not only perceives and understands the information, they can accurately project its implications into the future. They can anticipate what happens next.

A Yarloop resident with level three SA would have been able to understand what has happened, what is happening and what might happen next, and then project that awareness into an effective course of action to keep themselves safe.

This is a simple explanation of a complex psychological process on which the literature and research is extensive. But it demonstrates a basic, relevant point.

The Emergency Services Minister's concept of "personal situational awareness" is heavily reliant upon, rather than independent of, the emergency alerts issued by fire authorities.

Current alerts prone to misunderstanding

In their current form, those alerts make the task of quickly building accurate situational awareness difficult and vulnerable to misperception and misunderstanding.

The Minister and the Fire Commissioner have both defended the absence of explicit references to Yarloop in early warnings, arguing the town was in the Shire of Harvey which was specifically named in the early alerts.

But the absence of a specific reference almost certainly made it harder for people in Yarloop to quickly perceive, understand and project the risk to their town and their homes.

The existing alerts are also presented in a way that is heavy with information.

There is no map or diagram of the areas currently in the various levels of alert.

Instead, they contain a long list of streets defining the boundaries of the alert areas.

Mentally composing a picture of those areas is difficult.

During the fire, ABC reporters routinely reviewed the alerts, and then physically drew the boundary roads on a map so they could see clearly which areas and towns were affected.

A resident in Yarloop listening to a warning on the radio, or simply reading the list of streets, would have faced a hard task building that personal situational awareness of where the fire had been, what it was doing now, and when it might arrive in their town.

Ideally, the alert would deliver high level situational awareness at a glance, showing the resident exactly where the alert areas are, and giving them not just an explanation of what was happening, but a sense of how close and vulnerable they might be in the developing situation.

A revised alert system may well help deliver the personal situational awareness that Mr Francis believes is everyone's responsibility, in a way the current system does not.

From their defensive position this week, the Emergency Services Minister and Fire Commissioner have lashed critics, dismissing them as "armchair generals", appearing to argue only those in uniform understand what is required.

However, drawing a picture of the fire alert areas, rather than relying on street lists and broadcast announcements, might be the simplest way to enhance the personal situational awareness the Minister believes will protect lives.

It may just give residents a vital tool they need to "hold the bubble" and survive.

Andrew O'Connor is a political reporter with ABC News in Perth, who was part of the team covering the South West fires earlier this month. He previously worked as an aviation safety manager, developing safety systems for regional airline operations.

Topics: bushfire, safety, safety-education, yarloop-6218

First posted