The New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) wanted to understand how communities respond to fire threats. Specifically, they wanted to understand how driver behaviour changed in the general area before, during and after an Emergency Warning period.
To support this analysis, the Compass Data Science team developed a dashboard examining vehicle trips during the Cessnock Road fire in late 2023. The fire started on December 14 and was extinguished on December 22. An Emergency Alert was issued to residents at 3:33pm when the fire started. Residents in the affected area received both voice messages and SMS alerts.
The RFS is looking to create similar dashboards to investigate driver behaviour before, during and after other fires and Emergency Warning periods to inform their evacuation protocols. This project is part of the Natural Hazards Program grant.