5/12/14 Finishing the post from TFS Headquarters

So to finish the last post, we then had a presentation from Tony Blanks about Smoke Management.  After

Tony talks about smoke.

bushfires and prescribed burns began impacting communities, there was public pressure to do something about the smoke, especially in Tasmania where eco-tourism is a big deal.  So they created a coordinated Smoke Management Strategy in 2009.  They have created air sheds like water catchments with very specific guidelines for weather, size and frequency of burns, etc.  There are 11 air sheds statewide and air quality and burning is divided into smoke units.  There are only so many smoke units available and people have to bid on them.  They have a website where people can see planned burns, can see on the map what was lit that day or remains lit from days before and there is a burn bulletin put out each day about whats planned followed by whats been achieved. He says its not a perfect system but it seems to be working fairly well.

Then we heard from Andrew who gave us a description of how TFS warned and worked with the community during last January’s fire in Dunalley.  He was working as the state PIO during that time and coordinating information on many fires statewide.  Many PIO's with IMT's were doing incident specific work and Andrew was coordinating it all and putting out aggregated messages, updating the state website and doing live radio updates. 

Andrew used the national warning and advisories system a lot before the most active fire day.  He says they sent 600 emergency warnings which replicate to Twitter and Facebook, 23,500 alerts to phones and had 1.5 million hits to the website.  He commented that after the last fire season when the website had crashed, they had upgraded it to be more robust which was fortunate and this time it held up.   The FB page had 127,000 contacts. They also use a system called TASALERT which can be manually or automatically replicated with dispatch information but pulls in all alerts fromfire  dispatch or police automatically.  Most of this information also goes automatically to media partners who sign up to receive the alerts and warnings, but they are required to read the information EXACTLY as it comes to them. 

Mel Irons presents

Andrew added that his most effective tool was regular live briefings on the radio station.  ABC radio is the official emergency broadcast radio station and he got very good feedback about the, once per hour, very blunt information he provided.  He said, he confirmed as much information as he could based on radio traffic, maps and dispatch, but did  not worry about actually confirming information with ground personnel as they were very busy.  If there was information that could change he was clear it was “current” information that might change.   He worked in conjunction with a community member, Mel Irons, who had created an ad hoc social media page that worked hand in hand with his official fire information.

Mel  spoke to us about how her Facebook Page, Tassie Fires - We Can Help, emerged as the fire grew and how she and Andrew collaborated to assist.  She says she simply wanted to help and so created a Facebook page for people to share information.  She had specific objectives she tried to stick to.  It didn't take off immediately, but as soon as she told the main Emergency radio Station ABC Radio, it took off.

Mel's Community Facebook Page

She wanted the page to be positive. She did not post fire information at all although sometimes people posted information.  Specific fire detail was a role filled by Andrew, but she did help drive people to the official TFS website, and let people know about Andrew’s hourly broadcasts.  She worked to focus the page on sharing information, allowing people in need to ask for things, and allowing posts from people who had things to offer. Because the Dunalley peninsula was cut off from the mainland, she coordinated needs for fuel, food and other kinds of help.  She says she tried to verify things but since the island is small, she knew most people and so didn't verify most things.  Many times people ask her to post things offering help or a place to stay or meals and she would.  Sometimes it was a boat leaving and anyone who need a ride could hop on.  This proved critical because there was no way off the peninsula.

Tassie fires webpage

She and Andrew say the key was collaboration and allowing each to play the role they could and assist the community. They shared information with Andrew providing official statistics, warnings and updates and Mel giving the community a place to help each other.  Mel posted around 13 hours a day for two weeks both during the fire and after, to assist in recovery - she did 2400 posts. She has since changed the Ph.D she was working on to focus on what happened in Dunalley with social media.

Her analytics showed heavy use: 21,000 very active people, 301,646 using the page, 80% female and 20% male with 35-44 the primary age group. She has since started a webpage which is still bringing people together.