People with a physical disability are often more at risk during bushfires, and may not have effective bushfire plans. These greater risks have been attributed to poor communication, and the proposed solution is greater diversity of formats of emergency education and messaging. However, this does not explain why people with a disability may choose not to have a bushfire plan, or develop plans which require full physical functioning.

This paper suggests that lack of or limited bushfire planning reflects not a lack of information, but a reluctance to identify one’s self, or be identified as, ‘not able’, ‘useless’ or a ‘burden’. Not identifying bushfire risk may also be a way to reject the negative implications for one’s independence and self-efficacy. This identity explanation of bushfire plans suggests that effective communication and education to increase planning could: avoid positioning people as ‘vulnerable’; champion positive disability identities and roles in bushfires; and normalise an evaluation of physical abilities as something everyone (not just ‘disabled people’) does in preparing for bushfires.