Replication Data for "Enhancing Response Coordination Through the Assessment of Response Network Structural Dynamics"

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A vast area in the Australian state of Victoria was burnt in February 2009 as a series of bushfires, also called “Black Saturday bushfires”, ignited on Saturday 7 February. These overwhelming and destructive bushfires caused the destruction of over 3,500 structures and 450,000 hectares of land, leaving 414 people injured, 7,562 people displaced, and causing 173 fatalities. One of the largest and devastating series of fires burned a large area around the Kilmore East suburb, 90 kilometers north of Melbourne. The Kilmore East fire was extraordinary and unprecedented with the most severe damage and fatalities (119 people died and 1,242 homes were destroyed). The data used in this research comes from a content analysis of the reports (transcripts and individual statements) produced by the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, which was established shortly after Black Saturday (on 16 February, 2009) to investigate the causes and responses to the bushfires which roared through parts of Victoria in late January and early February 2009. Submissions from Victorian communities were first thoroughly reviewed by the Commission’s legal team, and then considered for the final report that was delivered on 31 July, 2010. All submissions were published on the Commission’s website (www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au) for public use unless agreed otherwise by the Commission. The final report consists of a final summary, proposing 67 “recommendations about changes needed to reduce the risk, and the consequences, of similar disasters in the future”, and four volumes. One of the volumes provides statistics about the 12 main major fires and summarizes the main events of each fire in terms of ‘how it started’, ‘who was involved’, and ‘how emergency services communicated while fighting the fire’. This includes references to the statements of the main personnel involved in the operations, provided to the Commission mainly based on the personal log of events they are required to make during and after operations. To form an appropriate response coordination network, the data collection involved the following phases: • Finding the reports related to the special fire (i.e., Kilmore East fires) • Finding key personnel involved in the response operation • Extracting the “statement file” for each key Incident Management Team (IMT) participant • Extracting the interaction among the personnel through mining and reviewing the statement files • Building, analyzing, and visualizing the response coordination network. After reading the ‘Kilmore East fires’ section, other relevant documents (such as the ‘brief report’) were identified from the list of references. Reviewing these documents, which summarized the main issues during the incident, enabled us to identify the participants involved in the emergency operation, mainly in the IMT such as the Incident Controller (IC), Deputy Incident Controller (DIC), and Planning Officers (PO). Then individuals’ statements, listed in the original ‘brief report’ document , were extracted from the repository searching for “Statement of [person name]”.