Assessment Two Essay: Report on Community Recovery - Victoria Bushfire

This report outlines a comprehensive disaster recovery plan for a hypothetical bushfire scenario in Victoria, Australia. It delves into the key principles of effective recovery management, emphasizing coordination, communication, and a community-led approach. The report analyzes the significant economic, social, and environmental impacts of such a disaster, proposing strategies to mitigate these effects. It details a 10-step recovery management process and includes an evaluation plan to assess the plan's success. The introduction establishes the context and purpose, followed by an overview of the affected community and the background of the bushfire. The paper discusses the aftermath, key principles like community understanding, recognizing complexity, community-led recovery, coordination, effective communication, and capacity building. Strategies for addressing social, environmental, and economic impacts are presented, alongside a discussion of the stages of an effective emergency management plan. Recommendations and an evaluation framework conclude the report, offering a holistic approach to disaster recovery.

Assessment Two -
Essay: Report on
Community Recovery
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Summary
This is a disaster recovery plan for a bushfire
in Victoria of Australia. It includes brief
analysis on strategies that must be
implemented to ensure successful recovery
management. Key learning from this paper
highlights key principles such as coordination,
communication, community led approach to
address holistic approach towards disaster
recovery. It also include information on major
economic, social and environmental losses
due to fire, strategies that can be undertaken
to address the same, it also states 10 step
recovery management process that might
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help committee for better recovery execution,
finally it include brief evaluation plan to
calculate its success and areas of concern.
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Table of Contents
Summary..............................................................2
Introduction..........................................................5
Purpose of this report...........................................6
Overview of the community in question................6
Background of the issue.......................................8
Aftermath the fire..................................................9
Key principle.......................................................10
Understanding the context..............................12
Recognizing the complexity............................13
Community led recovery.................................15
Coordination and collaboration.......................16
Effective communication.................................17
Acknowledging and building capacity.............19
Continuous improvement and evaluation........20
Key strategies....................................................21
Social impact..................................................22
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Environmental impact.....................................23
Economic impact............................................24
Stages of effective emergency management
plan.................................................................25
Recommendations.............................................28
Evaluation..........................................................29
Conclusion.........................................................36
Bibliography.......................................................38
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Introduction
Disaster is serious disruption in community life
causing death or serious injuries. This paper
presents brief analysis on strategies and
procedures that can be used for overcoming
situation of emergency. It includes foresight of
risk and countermeasures to overcome the
same.
Purpose of this report
This is a disaster management plan prepared
on a hypothetical scenario of community
emergency. It is prepared by emergency
manager to provide a brief on recovery phase.
This paper includes brief introduction of
scenario, principle of recovery management,
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its strategies, recommendations and
evaluation plan.
Overview of the community in
question
Community that suffers most due to bushfire
includes Beechworth, Bendigo, Bunyip,
Churchill, Horsham, Kinglake, Narre Warren,
Redesdale, and Upper Ferntree Gully
(knowledge.aidr.org.au, 2009). Total
population of victoria region is around 63 lakh,
with around 40 percent of population prone to
bushfire issue; it is most bush fire prone area
in Australia. There has been use of fire for
complex land management tools by aboriginal
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community, there had been use of fire and
heat to burn grass and bush for development
and modernization in city. Though fire has
also favoured survival and spread of fire
resistant plant but scenario has also started to
change as uncontrolled burning has become
major threat to people life and public property.
This caused intervention by government
through policy restrictions on the use of fire to
limit the use of fire to minimum as agricultural
tool.
Background of the issue
This paper is based on bushfire in Victoria. A
series of bushfire occurred in Victoria killing
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more than 173 people and more than 400
were injured; it also caused destruction of
several homes in Victoria (Stewart, 2009). It is
caused by high recording heat wave with gale
force winds. Further, fire was extended due
to changes in the direction of wind and faulty
power pole that caused fire spread in forest
causing more than 100 deaths
(www.nma.gov.au, 2009).
Aftermath of the fire
This deadly fire has caused extreme weather
conditions, it caused severe drought in the
region and tinder dry vegetation. There has
been huge loss to personal properties, loss of
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families, home and properties. There has
been rise of suicide among bushfire survivors,
alcohol and drug abuse also enhanced which
shows strong psychological impact on the
bushfire survivors. Fire caused numerous loss
of life and injuries, more than 3500 buildings
burned, and death of animals. This caused
government interventions and preparation of
bushfire polices.
Key principle
Disaster management plans needs to ensure
preparedness, prevention and response
toward emergency scenarios. National
Principles for Disaster Recovery (COAG
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2011) presented components of effective
disaster management, it must include proper
community understanding, and understanding
complexity of emergency scenario, adopting
community led approaches, planned
approach, proper communication and
implementation.
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(Australian institute of disaster resilience,
2018)
Seven principles in context of bushfire
disaster management plan are discussed
below;
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