Don’t miss 60 Minutes tomorrow night (19th Oct 2014) on Channel 9 at 7:30pm.
“It was Australia’s worst ever house fire.
Eight children from two families died.
But it should never have happened.
Why your smoke alarm may not save you.”
Climate Change Forcing Rethink on Fire Risk
ABC News report posted 17 Oct 2014 by Juanita Phillips and Ursula Malone.
Title: Climate change forcing rethink on fire risk, RFS chief Shane Fitzsimmons says.
Climate change is having an impact on every level of fire management, the New South Wales rural fire chief has said on the first anniversary of the Blue Mountains bushfires.
The NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said with more days of high fire danger, there is now a shrinking window of opportunity to carry out back-burning and other hazard reduction.
“If our window of opportunity continues to shrink, in order to get those really important pre-season activities underway then, yes, there’s a broader argument that needs to be had around matters of climate change and its effect on fire management and fire seasons,” he said.
Click HERE to check out the full story on the ABC web site.
Firefighters appalled by Coonabarabran bushfire management
By Joanna Woodburn
Updated 15 Sep 2014, 2:34pm
The National Parks and Wildlife Service should be stripped of its firefighting responsibilities, a volunteer firefighters group has told a parliamentary inquiry.
An Upper House committee is investigating the response to the bushfire in the Warrumbungle National Park in January last year, which burned more than 90 per cent of the park, destroyed 53 homes and killed hundreds of livestock.
Volunteer Fire Fighters Association (VFFA) president Peter Cannon told the inquiry he was “absolutely appalled at how it was managed”, saying the command structure did not work.
“We’re all basically being trained in what is required and it is a complete failure in my eyes on this fire,” he said.
Mr Cannon was asked if a single organisation should be responsible for firefighting in New South Wales.
The Rural Fire Service (RFS), NPWS and the Forestry Corporation of NSW currently share responsibility for firefighting.
“Firefighting authority should be removed from National Parks because they are not firefighters,” Mr Cannon said.
VFFA vice-president Brian Williams gave evidence about the communication between the RFS and landholders.
He said many RFS group captains in the Coonabarabran area were not initially told a fire had broken out.
“We need more local expertise to come in and assist and they would have jumped at the chance but they were out of it; they were out of the loop,” Mr Williams said.
Earlier, former silviculturist Vic Jurskis gave evidence about how parks and land should be managed to prevent major bushfires.
He said the Coonabarabran disaster showed what would happen if NPWS did not carry out fire prevention work.
“It’s not just that area. It’s any area that if you don’t graze it and/or burn the country it’ll turn into scrub, it’ll turn into a time-bomb and one day it will explode,” Mr Jurskis said.
He said he would like to see regulations simplified to facilitate rather than prevent hazard reduction.
Click HERE to read the original media article.
The RFS is Not Listening
Published: 02 September 2014 on the 2ST web page.
Blue or Yellow Shirts for RFS Volunteers?
In recent times there’s has been a great deal of angst amonst RFS volunteers about the yellow shirts replacing the blue drill shirt.
Barry Mac spoke to Ben Sheppard Media Officer from the RFS and Mick Holton, Chairman of the Volunteer Firfighters Association Region South.
Have a listen to Mick’s comments on this issue.
Click HERE to read the original media article.
This post is intended as a means of sharing media information. The views or opinions expressed in the content may not be shared by all NSW FRS Volunteer. Readers are encouraged to form their own opinions based upon a wide range of information and experience.