Given the serious risk that fire poses to Australian communities, an understanding of how people mobilise social networks as resources for dealing with the threat of fire is crucial. Social networks as an object of study constitute the pathways through which people offer and obtain information, forge relationships and engage in activities or transactions. These networks indicate the ways in which people are able to process and share significant information, thus highlighting avenues in which safety agencies can best reach their target audiences and effectively provide emergency services.

The primary focus of this paper centres on methods to communicate future risks, by discussing two outcomes of combining applied anthropological methods with the discipline of disaster management. Using field data obtained from a comparative ethnography conducted in two different Victorian regions, these outcomes include: 1) evidence of network constructions in at-risk areas that are highly influenced by elements of the social and physical landscapes, and 2) presentation of insights and perspectives on selection processes that influence the ways in which people (in these particular landscapes) are able to receive, and importantly, accept, different types of information.

These outcomes indicate the significance of assessing at-risk areas independently, as social landscapes will differ in construction despite similarities or differences in the physical environment.

These issues will be initially addressed in a holistic, conceptual context, and then reinforced with detailed examples from the field data. Principally, this paper suggests that by understanding how people make associations within and across different types of regions, we can improve our knowledge of how to interact and engage with people in those areas when manufacturing and communicating risk information.