Predictions in Public Phase 1 Report

The research conducted in Phase 1 of the Predictions in Public project focused on gaining an overview of current agency use and perceptions of the future use of public-facing predictive fire spread maps as well as current community comprehension and use of existing products. We sought to understand the role of current incident warning products to ensure that future predictive products can complement those existing products. Phase 1 has provided a strong foundation from which the project can move into Phase 2: the development and testing of predictive map concepts with communities across Australia.

Phase 1 has resulted in research reports for each Phase 1 study:
• Draft evidence-based principles drawn from a literature review.
• 44 interviews with agency staff.
• 94 community interviews in the ACT, NSW, Tasmania, and Victoria.
• 3,007 community responses to a national survey.

Discussions between the research team and the project steering committee were used to present the project findings and discuss their implications for current and future practice. These discussions resulted in agreement across the project team (i.e., the research team and the project steering committee regarding the following:
• National agreement on definitions of current incident warning maps and future predictive products.
• The selection of evidence-based principles of map design, risk communication, map dissemination and community education and engagement that will be further developed and tested in phases 2 and 3 of
the Predictions in Public project.

The selection of potential practical outputs to be developed in Phase 3 based on Phase 1 results. It has also resulted in a potential practical output:
• The Predictions in Public Current Practice Atlas.