Communities find TPPs worth keeping

225 Township Protection Plans for towns rated very high to extreme fire risk were sent out to individuals and households in 420 towns.

Over 400,000 TPPs were mailed out by the CFA and through 10 different local councils in high-risk bushfire areas.

Township Protection Plans (TPPs) are documents produced by CFA in consultation with local government and local communities and are a key source of information about bushfire preparation and planning.  TPPs contain information about a town’s bushfire history, terrain, vegetation and access routes. They feature community based maps with key landmarks, routes and neighbourhood safer places (places of last resort), Bushfire survival options including shelter options and more.  

This is the third year of the Township Protection Planning project and in the interests of gaining feedback from our communities, the CFA through an independent research company ran 10 focus groups and 40 depth interviews in five locations across Victoria. In addition, a quantitative survey was sent out capturing the venues of over 1,700 people.

The Township Protection Plans researched well with over 80% indicating that they had kept this document and that it helped them know when to leave early and would help them survive a fire.  87% said it would help them inform and/or support their fire plan and 92% indicated that it was very important when planning for bushfire to receive localized information.

However, we did receive some really good feedback from people that although they really like the localization of the documents, they would like to see even more localization, with the addition of history of fire in their area, fire behaviour and the specific bushfire and grassfire risks which impact them.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this research and we hope to be able to incorporate some of these findings in the next version of the Township Protection Plans. For those who would like a little more detail, please click on the links for the attached word and powerpoint summaries of the qualitative and quantitative research findings.

For any further information, please contact Paul Harris, Project Manager, Township Protection Planning, CFA on paul.harris@cfa.vic.gov.au or 9262 8571.