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The children in this study were acutely aware of the adverse effects that bushfires can exert on individuals, households, and communities. The three hazard impacts about which children expressed most concern were 1) property damage and destruction, 2) death and injury and 3) environmental degradation, each of which are discussed in detail below.

5.2.1 Property damage and destruction

The first category of hazard impacts identified by the children was property damage and destruction.

As reflected in the following extracts, children were highly aware that bushfires can burn down houses and destroy other valuable buildings, belongings and assets:

Briony: What happens in a bushfire?

Laura: Trees get burnt and grass gets burnt, and if there’s a house, that can get burnt too.

-5yrs, Bothwell Sally: The bushfire can burn the house up, and your favourite things - CD’s, toys, teddies, clothes,

favourite food, drinks, photos.

-7yrs Huonville Olive: Bushfires are dangerous.

Penny: Yeah, people can lose their houses and their very beloved stuff.

-8yrs, Warrandyte Briony: What would happen to your house if a bushfire did come through Bothwell?

Mike: Probably burn down.

Mandy: It would burn all your good stuff. There would be nothing left. Brendan: Yeah, there’d be no houses.

-10yrs, Bothwell Mary: In a bushfire, some people’s houses could get burnt down, and some of their stuff could get

destroyed or most of it.

-11yrs, Huonville

As reflected in the above extracts, children perceived bushfires as potentially catastrophic events that can cause widespread material and economic losses. There was also a distinctly personal dimension to the way children framed material losses: people lose their ‘beloved’ possessions, their ‘favourite things’, their ‘good stuff’. As such, property damage and destruction was a key concern for the children in this study.

5.2.2 Death and injury

The second category of hazard impacts of concern to the children in this study was death and injury.

As the following extracts illustrate, the children were fully aware of the potential for bushfires to kill or seriously injure people:

Briony: Mahra, what’s dangerous about bushfires? Mahra: They can hurt people.

-5yrs, Bothwell

Briony: What could happen to you if there was a bushfire? Harper: We could die.

-6yrs, Warrandyte Briony: So what happens to people in bushfires?

Luca: They get really hurt and have to go to hospital.

-7yrs, Macedon Taylor: Lots of people die from bushfires and it’s not a very pretty sight.

-9yrs, Warrandyte Ellie: There’s a very high risk of being killed I think.

-10yrs, Warrandyte Briony: What can happen to people in bushfires?

Steph: The fire burns them and they just die.

-11yrs, Macedon Children were also concerned about the potential for bushfires to kill pets and other animals:

Alyssa: You could lose your pets.

-8yrs, Warrandyte Penny: If you had a dog, you could lose your dog.

-8yrs, Warrandyte

Children identified a variety of ways in which people could be killed or injured in bushfires. The first of these was smoke inhalation, with many children describing a process whereby smoke would interfere with normal lung function and cause suffocation:

Ismail: You could get really sick cos the smoke goes in your mouth and it…. [pats chest and simulates difficulty breathing].

-7yrs, Macedon Briony: So A, how could the smoke make someone die?

Mandy: Because the smokes really thick and because when the smoke goes into your lungs and makes it [difficult to breath] yeah.

Brendan: And people could get really, really hot and couldn’t breathe through the smoke. Briony: And what happens when you breathe too much smoke?

Mandy: You die.

Mike: It hurts your lungs.

Philip: Smoke inhalation and that’s a way of dying pretty much, you breathe in too much smoke and then your lungs don’t work

-12yrs, Macedon Children also identified burns as major cause of death and injury:

Kirsty: You might get killed.

Briony: How?

Kirsty: Because they’re really hot and they burn you all up.

-6yrs, Warrandyte Briony: How could someone die in bushfire?

Ben: You can get burnt really badly.

-7yrs, Bothwell Briony: How do people die in bushfires?

Sacha: They could get burnt.

-9yrs, Huonville Briony: What would be the dangers [for people]?

Philip: Getting burnt. Getting third degree burns or getting incinerated.

-11yrs, Macedon

In terms of causality, burns were primarily attributed to actually catching on fire, as depicted in the following extracts:

Briony: Okay, so what can happen to people in a bushfire? Mick: They die. They catch on fire.

-8yrs. Warrandyte Amy: They could get their hair on fire and then your whole body will catch on fire.

-9yrs, Macedon Mai: You could catch alight and be burnt alive.

-11yrs, Huonville Very few children attributed burns to exposure to radiant heat and the following extract represents the only explicit reference to radiant heat as a cause of death.

Briony: How would someone die in a bushfire? Lucas: Radiant heat.

Briony: Yep, tell me about radiant heat?

Lucas: It like the heat that comes off the bushfire.

-9yrs, Warrandyte

Whilst this reference did not specify the precise mechanisms by which radiant heat would impact on the human body, it portrays at least a rudimentary awareness of its effects.

A number of children also identified dehydration as a cause of death or injury. However, as the following extracts illustrate, it was not identified as a primary cause of death, but as a mediating factor

Larry: You could get dehydrated and get knocked out and then the fire could come closer and closer and then [gestures being covered by the fire]

-8yrs, Macedon Briony: What are the other major dangers for people when there’s a bushfire?

Tom: Getting dehydrated. Briony: What’s dehydrated?

Sila: It means like if you haven’t had water and it’s a very hot day you can like get all dried up and like blackout and then it would be bye-bye to you cos like you’re just there blacked out and the fire’s come.

-10yrs, Macedon Briony: How would someone die in a bushfire?

Lang: Dehydration and then you’d like collapse and then the fire takes you.

- 12yrs, Warrandyte

The final cause of death and injury identified by the children in this study was getting crushed by burning trees and other falling debris:

Briony: Are there any other ways someone could die in a bushfire?

Ismail: Yeah. A tree could fall down and land on your head and then they can just die.

-7yrs, Macedon Greg: Well, if you’re like really inside all these trees, if one tree gets catched on fire, nearly every

other tree gets catched on fire so if they all fall down you’d probably really get squashed by them.

-8yrs, Macedon Briony: Are there any other ways people can die in bushfire?

Ben: If the fire burns a tree and a tree falls on you.

-9yrs, Bothwell Briony: What are the other dangers? How does a bushfire kill?

Dave: Falling trees landing on you.

-11yrs, Bothwell Lang: Well, I reckon the danger is something falling on top of you or something.

Scout: Like falling rubble.

-11/12yrs, Warrandyte

As will be explored in greater depth in later discussions pertaining to conditions of exposure, falling trees and collapsing houses were a major concern amongst the children and were strongly associated with both serious injury and death.

For the children in this study, being aware of the potential for property damage and destruction was often a source of negative emotional reactions including worry, fear, and sadness:

Steph: I’m afraid of bushfires because they can kill people and animals and I love animals. -7yrs, Huonville

Gemma: I’ve thought about fires at bedtime at it feels like I just wanna cry. Briony: Why is that?

Gemma: Because I’d lose everything and I could lose myself or my mum and dad.

-9yrs, Warrandyte Parents also reported signs of bushfire-related fear and anxiety in their children. In the most extreme case, Sally had observed her son become extremely anxious after the family moved to Macedon from the inner city suburbs of Melbourne and described how, at one point, this fear had impeded his everyday functioning:

Sally: Well, we talked about fires in the first year and he would get really frightened: very, very frightened. You know like he would have trouble sleeping because he was worried about there being a bushfire and it was something like, you know, he chose not to go and play.

-Mother of Brian (9yrs), Macedon

It is important to emphasise at the outset, that although children articulated various degrees of bushfire related fear, there was no evidence in the data that talking about bushfire hazards and disasters served to exacerbate these fears. Rather, as will be argued throughout this thesis, talking about hazards and disasters, and identifying strategies for preventing, mitigating and preparing for them was found to serve a key ameliorative function.

5.2.3 Environmental degradation

An additional category of potential bushfire impacts identified by the children was environmental degradation. There was a distinct tendency for the children to perceive bushfires as having a detrimental effect on the natural environment. Bushfires were viewed as responsible for destroying vegetation, killing native animals and destroying native habitat:

Jesse: It’s not healthy for the bush because the fire burns the roots out.

-9/10yrs, Macedon Will: A bushfire could burn all the bush and all the animals would probably die.

-10yrs, Macedon Scout: Bushfires destroy thousands of native animal's homes.

-11yrs, Warrandyte

The children were generally unaware of the regenerative and restorative impacts of bushfire on Australian native ecosystems. However, one child did articulate an understanding of bushfire’s role in plant succession. When this child was asked if he viewed bushfire as a positive or negative event, he responded thus:

Solomon: I guess I find them both positive and negative. They are negative because you can get burnt and die and I heard that it’s like 900 degrees inside a bushfire, that’s what I’ve heard. And

the positive thing is that when it burns all the big trees and they die, because there’s a lot of ash and ash makes good fertiliser, a lot of shrubs and stuff come up.

Having outlined children’s awareness of bushfire impacts, the discussion will proceed to the conditions and processes that were perceived as contributing toward them.