5/3/14 Symposium in Canberra - Coffs Harbour - Ballina

Very busy few days, hence missing one post. I am writing on Saturday. WIFI is scarce so adding pictures is difficult.

Friday was an all day event, the final day of the 6 nation, International Symposium on Bushfire Management.  We had some amazing speakers all day which I will not try to summarize but try, instead to generalize. There were 5 sessions in the symposium, including Tom Harbour Thursday, and 4 on Friday. The intent was after each presentation, the facilitator would distill the issues raised,  down to three subject areas and all participants broke into groups to discuss a subject area.  We listened to Jean-Michel Dumaz from France talk about ICS, HROs and other human factors related to a safety culture.  We listened to Professor Jim McLennan from Trobe University in Melbourne talk about his research about Information Flow and messaging.  Dr McLennan has worked a great deal with Sarah MacCaffrey whom many in the US know from her fire research.  We heard from Andrew Sullivan on how we determine the research priorities of practitioners and from Jean Michel Dumaz again  about some of the newest research being done for fire related tools and equipment in France. And lastly, the group took all the discussion, learning, and short and long term goals of the group and distilled them into priority projects for all 6 nations and devised a plan for follow-up.


A long day but, very satisfying to see the many similarities and few differences between all countries and the willingness to work toward solutions that provide answers for all.  We finished the day with a final BBQ put on by our ACT hosts at the Stromlo Fire Depot.    Had some yummy "snags"  kind of a hot dog looking thing but tasted way better.  And some very thin steaks, also delish, and lots of other goodies. It was a great way to say goodbye to friends from the ACT.

The "big" banana in Coffs Harbour!

Saturday began very early as we caught a 5 am bus to the airport in Canberra for a flight to Sydney and to Coffs Harbour. Coffs Harbour is a beautiful area north of Sydney which makes it nearer the equator and much warmer and more tropical.  There were palm trees at the airport and the air was significantly warmer and more humid.  Our first stop was "the big banana" the second in our tour of "big things" in Australia.  The first was a "big fish!"  I cannot explain this!  Coffs Harbour is home to many banana plantations that produce smaller and tastier bananas that we buy in the states.  They also have huge blueberry production, much of which goes to the US.

We were met in Coffs Harbour by Adrian, our escort for the north east part of New South Wales, and some of the Rural Fire Service people he works with.  We spent the day learning about the community fire protection programs in use in the area that mesh risk reduction programs with biodiversity and the historical knowledge and burning practices

 of the aboriginal people of the area. 

Overlook at Coffs Harbour

We went to a turnout that overlooks the ocean off the east coast of Australia.  It looks a lot like the coast of San Diego. Like San Diego, most of the population lives near the beach in small communities and its difficult to do prescribed burning.  But they do burn in small patches as they can, trying to return the area to its original grass ecosystem.

We were introduced to 3 people, John, Waminda and Mark, that were part of a program called Hot Spots.

Jamie, left with Rural Fire Services and
 John with Hot Spots talk about their programs

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Jamie shows the tour group a prescribed burn
done by the aboriginal owners of some land
near Red Rock River.

 It is a collaborative effort between state, local and other land management agencies to help communities with landscape restoration and community collaboration. While there are Community Bushfire Protection  programs done by the Rural Fire Service to help homeowners and "shires" build "Asset Protection Zones" in their community, RFS works mostly in larger communities. Hot Spot works in rural areas where there are larger holdings and communities are chosen by 3 criteria:  They must be at high risk from bushfire, they have to have high biodiversity value, and they must be a cohesive community that is receptive to what Hot Spot wants to do.  What's fascinating is the Hot Spot personnel meet with the community, assess property Asset Protection Zones even providing landowners with specific, closeup maps of their property.  On these maps, the land owners identify the assets on their property, the biodiversity values on their land and define the role they would like fire to play on their property.  Hot Spot will also help landowners remove hazard materials and teach them to do their own prescribed burning to maintain their property. It's very much a "teach them to fish" model in which the Hot Spots teach and the communities learn and have passed a long, even generationally, what they have learned. Hot Spots also research and talk to the aboriginal people still available who hold the history of fire on aboriginal lands and pass along past burning .

Red Rock River, an aboriginal holding.

If there is one thing the Australians have done very well, among many things, it's collaboration and building relationships.  And not just with agency partners but with the people in their communities as well, making them full partners in the process of protecting their property from fire and even maintaining the correct ecological balance.