Working together to save lives
Published Date: 12 Jul 2013
Summary
Central Western Daily By NADINE MORTON
TEAM work is vital in dealing with major fires like the Coonabarabran bushfire in January.
This week's incident management workshop in Orange aims to bring the different agencies involved in fighting fires together to work as efficiently as possible.
Several services were involved in the management of the 46,000-hectare fire in Coonabarabran, which wiped out 53 homes, killed countless stock and destroyed the livelihoods of a community.
Staff from the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS), Fire and Rescue NSW, the Department of Primary Industries and State Forests worked together this week to ensure future fires were dealt with as swiftly as possible.
TRAINING TO SAVE LIVES: NSW Rural Fire Service Inspector Glen Byrnes briefs the incoming Incident Management Team with RFS member David Allen, Forest Corporation's Dan Kirby, Fire and Rescue NSW superintendent Rick Parkes and RFS inspector Dave Templeton during this week's training session.
RFS Canobolas Zone operations officer, Superintendent Brett Bowden said the training tested the systems, tools and resources they had in place to deal with fire emergencies.
"There are often dire consequences if you're not working together as a team," he said.
"It's [the training] to minimise the damage and extinguish the fire and keep our skills up.
"The intent is the teams do work together as effectively as possible."
RFS learning and development manager Peter Carter said the aim was to get services to work better together for a better outcome for the community.
"We could always be more efficient, you can't win the grand final if you don't do training," he said.
