FORESTS NSW hosts a popular annual event known as the Interagency Fire Training Day. This year’s training day was another huge success with a mix of group presentations and outdoor training sessions being held at the Delegate Country Club.

Forests NSW put together a great event with a number of New South Wales and Victorian agencies represented, including Forests NSW, Department of Sustainability and Environment, NSW Rural Fire Service, Willmotts Forests, Parks Victoria, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Jemena (Eastern Gas Pipeline) and South East Fibre Exports.

The program included a seasonal outlook, a briefing and night firefighting presentation, scene investigation and preservation of evidence, an Eastern Gas Pipeline safety presentation, pump operations, a “Doll’s House” compartment fire behaviour demonstration, fire overrun exercises and equipment familiarisation.

These events are valuable for a number of reasons not limited to skills acquisition and maintenance. The bringing together of the various agencies who deal with rural and rural/urban interface fires is clearly of great benefit to all the agencies and the communities they serve.

During firefighting emergencies these agencies will be able to work co-operatively in a more streamlined manner as a direct result of interagency training events.

The Doll’s House demonstration was popular, and is designed as a learning tool for structural firefighting, but many aspects of the demonstration can be applied to bush fire fighting.

In this demonstration a specially prepared wooden box is burnt from the inside to represent a fire in a building, during the fire a number of fire development and fire science conditions are observed.

Firefighters get to witness fire development, flashover, smoke becomes a fuel and backdraft (very different to the Hollywood movie).

A Pumps and Pumping session was used to explore the theory of pump operations with a “back to basics” approach. A Dry Vacuum Test was demonstrated, then a drafting exercise was conducted.

A new style of suction strainer was also demonstrated as part of this session.