Agent-based analysis of the spread of awareness in the population in the prodromal phase of bushfires

Efficient communication is essential in disasters in order to coordinate a response and assure effective evacuation. This paper focuses on the case study of the Melbourne bushfires in 2009. We first analysed some interviews of the population to know who the population communicates with (neighbours, family, authorities, etc), and using what channel (radio, phone, internet, etc). We then developed and implemented communicative actions in a Belief-DesireIntention model of the population’s behaviour. Finally, we ran experiments in order to compare the speed at which the population becomes aware of the fires in different scenarios with different types of communication (more or less organised). Our first results show that more organised modes of communication would provide significant benefits in terms of propagation of awareness in the population.