New Tenterfield bushfire review shows the power of community after a disaster
The Fire to Flourish program has shown that community action before, during and after a disaster is at the core of disaster resilience. Community members impacted by disasters are powerful and active decision-makers – they are ready, willing and capable of learning from disasters to identify priorities for resilience-strengthening action.
After Tenterfield was hit by bushfires in late 2023, locals came together to conduct a review, with support from Monash University research experts, to learn from what happened and articulate and address key priorities for the next disaster.
Throughout this review, community members led the way in identifying and implementing practical ways of strengthening their own disaster resilience.
The newly published A Community-Centred Disaster Learning Review of the 2023 Bushfires in Tenterfield, NSW: Lessons for Bushfire Resilience, supported by Tenterfield community members and co-authored by Dr Zoë D’Arcy and Dr Adriana Keating, showcases this innovative approach.
It presents a community-centred, post-disaster case study that successfully supported recovery and resilience, creating real-world positive impacts for Tenterfield locals affected by bushfires.
“The Tenterfield post-disaster review is a special case study, because it shows that it’s possible to review a disaster in a practical way that responds to and centres community members as the active decision-makers in their own resilience, creating real-world positive impacts for a community’s future,” said Dr D’Arcy.
The Review – and the accompanying Community-Based Disaster Learning Reviews: A Practice Guide detailing how to implement a similar methodology after a disaster – emphasises community self-determination and decision making, and provides critical hyperlocal information and direction for future community-led disaster resilience.
The Review also shows that when funding is available to support new community-identified priorities, as it was in Tenterfield, participatory grantmaking then provides an additional powerful avenue for directly strengthening community disaster resilience in the post-disaster period.
The new Review and accompanying Practice Guide can now be used as practical evidence-based guidance to help any community respond to a hazard.
If you’d like to start a conversation with authors, Dr Zoë D’Arcy and Dr Adriana Keating, about this Review, please get in touch.