2015 Conference Delegate Handbook

DELEGATE HANDBOOK

MAJOR SPONSOR

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CONTENTS

WELCOME

Welcome

5

Conference Committees

6

Sponsors

6

Keynote Speakers

7

Invited Speakers

10

Research Forum

13

Program Research Forum

14

Program Wednesday

16

Program Thursday

18

Conference Development Sessions

20

Innovation Zone Program

22

Dräger Knowledge Lounge

24

General Information

26

Exhibitor Listing

28

Exhibition Floor Plan

31

Abstracts

32

Abstract Index (by Author)

83

Poster List

84

Venue and Map

back cover

Greg Mullins ASFM AFAC President Commissioner Fire & Rescue NSW

Dr Laurie Hammond Chairman Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC

“New Directions in Emergency Management” – the theme for this year’s conference - will focus our attention on how emergency management has rapidly evolved, moving into a broader, sectorwide approach that includes all levels of government and a diverse range of partners. This new way of working is increasingly at the forefront of everything we do.

Each year emergency managers face the challenges of natural hazards. Many communities are adversely affected by severe weather events – cyclones in the north, storms along our coasts, floods on our plains, and fires in our hills.

The 22nd AFAC conference, held at the Adelaide Convention Centre on the banks of the River Torrens, will provide an opportunity to discuss and share new approaches in an all-hazard emergency management environment, and seek out innovative and engaging ways that we can partner with the community, business, government and researchers to foster and build disaster resilience.

Across our region the impact of disasters has been devastating.

Conference speakers will focus on the global and regional approach to disaster risk reduction to reduce vulnerability, and how this thinking can be applied in an Australasian context. We will consider what “shared responsibility” means and what it entails.

Speakers will also explore issues of diversity and culture. The lack of diversity in fire and emergency services, particularly our paid services, has been recognised for many years with little having changed. Speakers will address the question of why diversity is important and what we can do to bring about meaningful reform.

This year’s conference will be the second year that we have partnered with the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, with our sector embracing the knowledge that research contributes.

We had a sell-out crowd for the Research Forum last year, and this year we have even greater numbers of delegates attending this part of the conference, demonstrating the importance the sector is increasingly placing on research and evidence to inform decision making.

We have an exceptional program of speakers from Australia and across our region, as well as internationally from the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, all contributing to what will be a remarkable and diverse conference. This year for the first time we will have five concurrent streams and we expect the many varied presentations will challenge your thinking and encourage further discussion and debate about how we embrace new directions in emergency management.

I know that you will enjoy the conference and come away enriched.

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The work of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC is driven by those challenges, and is informed by the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience, and similar initiatives in other countries, which seek to ensure our communities are better prepared for and able to emerge less scathed by the ravages of natural disasters.

I welcome you to this annual conference of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, held in conjunction with the AFAC annual conference. Last year in Wellington was our first appearance, with our research program on full show.

Across any given year we are reminded of the relevance of science and research in the emergency management and land management sectors. Our members, which are represented by many of you here this week, have committed time and resources to ensure that the highest quality science underpins policies and plans, and that they serve the community during testing times. The science on show from the CRC researchers this week demonstrates the significant work and the benefits that will be delivered over coming years.

Most of our researchers are at the conference, and many are giving presentations and contributing research posters that are on display at the CRC and AFAC booth. I invite you to visit the booth, look at the posters and talk to our researchers. Such discussions can be the first steps towards collaborations and partnerships, which are very important measures of the success of this conference.

The Research Forum on the first day of the conference program showcases the diversity of the research being conducted, which in turn is a reflection of the all-hazards mission of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, as well as the research directions being pursued by the wider international research community. It is a great opportunity for end-users and scientists to learn about current research, and has become a popular and essential part of the conference week.

Please take the time while you are here to see the scope of the research and talk to us about how it can be adopted to benefit your organisation and your part of the industry.

We welcome your participation.

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STEERING COMMITTEE

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Chris Beattie (Chair)

SA State Emergency Service

Grant Pelton (Chair)

Grant Pelton

Dept Environment Water & Natural Resources

Dept Environment Water & Natural Resources

David McKenna

Dept Environment Water & Natural Resources

Greg Saunder

Forestry SA

Greg Nettleton

SA Country Fire Service

Mick Ayre

SA Country Fire Service

Greg Crossman

SA Metropolitan Fire Service

Fiona Dunstan

SA Country Fire Service

Grant Lupton

SA Metropolitan Fire Service

Greg Crossman

SA Metropolitan Fire Service

Stuart Ellis

AFAC

Peter Button

SA Metropolitan Fire Service

Amanda Leck

AFAC

Leanne Adams

SA State Emergency Service

Mandy Cant

AFAC

Robert Stevenson

SA State Emergency Service

Richard Thornton

Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC

Amanda Leck

AFAC

Mandy Cant

AFAC

Michael Rumsewicz

Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC

MAJOR SPONSOR

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Dr Mark Finney Research Forester US Forest Service (USA)

Dr Alex Zelinsky Chief Defence Scientist Defence Science and Technology Organisation

Dr Paul Willis Director and Host RiAus

Dr Mark Finney is a Research Forester with the US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory. He has worked at the Fire Laboratory since 1993 on fire behaviour, fire growth modelling and risk analysis, and landscape fuel management.

Dr Alex Zelinsky is the Chief Defence Scientist and head of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO).

Before joining DSTO he was Group Executive for Information Sciences at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Director of CSIRO’s Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Centre.

Dr Paul Willis is a respected leader in the science community and joined RiAus, Australia’s national science channel promoting public awareness and understanding of science, in 2011 as Director, continuing an impressive career in science and science communication.

He leads the fire behaviour program on fundamental fire behaviour research focusing on laboratory and field-scale experiments to understand the physical processes in fire spread. He was also responsible for the development and transfer of existing fire models to the national Internet-based Wildland Fire Decision Support System.

Dr Finney holds a Ph.D. in wildland fire science from the University of California at Berkeley (1991), an M.S. in Fire Ecology from the University of Washington (1986), and a B.S. in Forestry from Colorado State University (1984).

SPONSORS

Dr Zelinsky co-founded Seeing Machines, a high-technology company developing computer vision systems. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a start-up from the Australian National University in Canberra, where Dr Zelinsky was Professor of Systems Engineering.

Dr Zelinsky completed his Bachelor of Mathematical Sciences (Honours) and Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Wollongong.

Beginning his career as a Systems Engineer with BHP Steel International, Dr Zelinksy has extensively advised Federal and State governments in Australia, as a member of the Australian Government’s Defence Industry Innovation Board. He has served on the advisory panels to the Australian Research Centre (ARC) Centre for Vision Science and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems.

Dr Willis has a background in vertebrate palaeontology, studying the fossils of crocodiles and other reptiles. He also has an extensive career in science communication working for the ABC on TV programs such as Catalyst and Quantum as well as radio and online. He’s written books and articles on dinosaurs, fossils and rocks, and has led eight public expeditions to Antarctica.

Now, as Director of RiAus, he’s finding new ways to engage the people of Australia with the science that underpins their world.

In 2009, Engineers Australia named Dr Zelinsky Professional Engineer of the Year (Sydney Division) and in 2013 he was awarded the prestigious Pearcey Medal, the ICT industry’s premier prize for lifetime achievement.

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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS (CONT)

Feng Min Kan Head of Disaster Risk Reduction Asia Pacific United Nations

Dr Rowan Douglas Chief Executive Officer Capital Science and Policy Practice Willis Group (UK)

Group Captain Catherine McGregor AM Royal Australian Air Force

Trefor Munn-Venn Chief Executive Officer Rhapsody Strategies (Canada)

Feng Min Kan (Ph.D) is the Head of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) Asia-Pacific office. Prior to assuming the current post based in Bangkok, she served in the capacities of a Special Advisor to the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva; the Head of Advocacy and Outreach Unit and as the Head of Africa Regional Office of the UNISDR secretariat.

Dr Rowan Douglas is CEO Capital, Science & Policy Practice at Willis Group and Chairman of the Willis Research Network.

Willis is a global risk advisor, insurance and reinsurance broker of approximately 20,000 personnel operating in around 100 countries. Previously Dr Douglas served on the board of Willis Re as CEO Global Analytics. He also sits on the Executive Committee of the International Insurance Society, New York.

Group Captain Catherine McGregor is currently serving as the speechwriter and strategic adviser to the Chief of the Air Force. She entered the Royal Military College Duntroon in 1974 and graduated to the Royal Australian Infantry.

Trefor Munn-Venn is the Chief Executive Officer of Rhapsody Strategies, a management consulting group who focus on business coaching, organisational transformation and digital marketing.

Before joining UNISDR in 2002, she represented the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as the first Regional Disaster Response Advisor in Asia based in Kobe, Japan. During her role there she set up OCHA’s regional office and advanced OCHA’s partnership and networks with national governments, regional organisations and NGOs in Asia.

Dr Douglas is a member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science & Technology in the UK and of the Royal Society’s Working Group on Resilience to Extreme Weather. He has held appointments for the World Bank and UN, chairing the private sector input for the renewal of the UN Hyogo Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction in March 2015 and serving as Patron of the World Bank Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery Understanding Risk Conference, London 2014.

She has worked for a number of international organisations in different capacities, with progressive management responsibilities within the UN system, including OCHA, United Nations Office for Project Services, United Nations Development Program, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and International Organization for Migration.

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Dr Douglas read geography at Durham (BA) and Bristol (MPhil) universities before entering Lloyd’s as a reinsurance underwriter in 1992. He founded the risk information company WIRE Limited in 1994 which he sold to Willis Group in 2000.

In 2014 he received the Kenneth R Black Distinguished Service Award from the International Insurance Society.

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Over a career in the Australian Regular Army spanning 40 years, she has held a wide variety of regimental and staff appointments. She deployed on operations on three occasions including as the Commanding Officer of the Australian Army Training Team in Timor Leste and is a Tetum linguist.

Group Captain McGregor was awarded the Order of Australia on 26 January 2012 for her exceptional service to The Australian Army. She has served continuously as speechwriter to every Chief of the Army since 2000.

She is a published author and has written on politics and cricket for The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, and The Age. Group Captain McGregor is the Prime Minister’s delegate to the National Selection Panel for selection of The Prime Minister’s XI and is also the Head of Australian Services Women’s cricket. She is still active as a player and coach and was part of the ABC Grandstand team for the summer.

Trefor has worked with senior leaders around the world to help them use technology to accomplish their business goals. He has a diverse background— strategy, technology, sociology—and experience leading major initiatives that challenge norms. This has led to him working with some of the most innovative and challenging organisations in the world.

Trefor’s specialties include social media, strategy, public speaking, writing and communications planning.

Previously, Trefor held the position of Director, National Security & Public Safety for the Conference Board of Canada who are an independent, non-profit think-tank organisation specialising in economic trends, public policy and organisational performance.

Group Captain Catherine McGregor AM was recently named as one of Australia’s 50 most powerful women by the Australian Women’s Weekly.

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INVITED SPEAKERS

Dr Bill Griggs, AM Director Trauma Service Royal Adelaide Hospital

Professor Lyn Gilbert Clinical Professor Infectious Diseases University of Sydney

Margaret Allison Director Margaret Allison Consulting

Adam Dent Commissioner NSW State Emergency Service

Moira Fahy Independent Film Producer, Director and Scriptwriter

Iain MacKenzie Inspector-General Emergency Management Queensland

Dr Bill Griggs is one of Australia’s most experienced emergency medicine specialists and a world leader in his field.

He’s on the frontline with trauma patients domestically and overseas.

Professor Lyn Gilbert is an infectious diseases physician and clinical microbiologist, who, until recently, was Director of Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology-Laboratory Services at Institute for Clinical Pathology and Medical Research (ICPMR) Westmead Hospital.

Margaret Allison has had a diverse career spanning more than 35 years in the public sector in Queensland and New South Wales, in both local and state government.

With a professional background in human services, she has led services and reforms in areas including youth justice, child protection, disability, legal aid, domestic and family violence, child care and customer services.

Adam Dent was appointed as NSW SES Commissioner on 5 January 2015. He is responsible for the NSW government agency which is the combat agency for the coordination and control of prevention, preparation, response and recovery for storm, flood and tsunami for NSW.

Moira Fahy is an award-winning, independent film producer, director and scriptwriter. Moira has made five documentaries on the impact of natural disasters in Australia. She is the producer, writer and director of the ABC and Film Victoria documentary on the 1939 Black Friday fires which was a finalist in the 2004 AIMIA Awards, won the Victorian Fire Awareness Community Service Award for Excellence and an ATOM Award in 2004 for Best Documentary.

Iain MacKenzie served with the fire service in Queensland for more than 32 years and held the position of Deputy Commissioner for more than seven years. Prior to that he spent one year with Counter Disaster and Rescue Services in Executive and Deputy Executive Director roles.

Dr Griggs has completed hundreds of aeromedical retrievals and is Clinical Director of Retrieval Coordination for MedSTAR – South Australia’s statewide retrieval service. He is also the founder of community road safety program Roads2Survival™.

He is a member of the Royal Australian Air Force Specialist Reserve. His list of service includes deployment to the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, 2007 crash of Garuda 737 GA200 in Yogyakarta, 2009 Ashmore Reef SIEV36 explosion/fire as well as heading the SA AusMAT medical team during the 2009 Samoan tsunami disaster. In addition Dr Griggs was deployed to the Gulf War in 1991, Bougainville in 1994 and 1998 and East Timor in 1999 and 2007.

She is currently: • Clinical Professor in Infectious Diseases at the University of Sydney; • Senior researcher at the Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity and at the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine; • Clinical Lead in Infection Prevention and Control at Westmead Hospital.

Prof Gilbert was recently appointed by the Chief Medical Officer to chair a committee to provide advice to the Australian Health Protection Primary Committee on infection prevention and control for Ebola virus disease in Australian healthcare settings.

Dr Griggs holds an MBA and in 2003 was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM).

Margaret took up her most recent role as Director-General for the Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services in March 2012, following two years as the Public Service Commissioner in Queensland. She retired from the public sector at the end of 2013, and now works in her own consultancy business. She is a member of a number of boards, including the Queensland Police Service Board of Management.

Adam was previously the Director, Relief and Recovery at Emergency Management Victoria. He was responsible for leading reform of relief and recovery arrangements in Victoria as a part of the broader emergency management reform program.

This has included creating a coherent strategic framework for relief and recovery coordination providing improved scalability and partnerships, streamlining governance and coordination arrangements, review, development and implementation of an end-to-end impact assessment system and developing crisis communications and community engagement arrangements.

Deploying and leading over 1,300 personnel, he led the Red Cross relief and recovery effort in response to the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 and the widespread floods that hit northern Victoria in 2011 and 2012. He was also responsible for the management of the National Inquiry Centre following Cyclone Yasi in 2011.

Adam understands what it takes to lead people and ensure that communities are rebuilt to be better and more resilient.

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Her Black Friday documentary was also cited in the 2004 Council of Australian Governments’ Report to the Federal Government on bushfire Mitigation & Management as a key recommendation for the recovery of bushfire affected communities. Moira was also invited to speak at the Victorian Royal Commission into the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.

In an excerpt from Australian National University Professor of History, Dr Tom Griffiths’ evidence to the Royal Commission into the Black Saturday bushfires, he noted that her work was: “An important example of collaborative community historical scholarship that analyses both the experience and memory of fires…”

Iain holds a Masters Degree in Leadership and Management and is a graduate of the Institute of Fire Engineers. He has attended the United States National Fire Academy, Executive Fire Officer Program and was awarded the Australian Fire Service Medal in 2006.

Iain’s experience in Emergency Management in Queensland is extensive, having played pivotal leadership roles in the responses to most major disaster events in Queensland between 2001 and 2012.

Through 2013 Iain served on the Queensland Police and Community Safety Review and in October 2013 was the inaugural appointment to the position of Inspector-General Emergency Management.

She has interviewed and worked closely with leading climate change scientists, ecologists, meteorologists and environmental and social historians across Australia over the last fifteen years and her films are used by state and federal emergency management and recovery agencies; the Red Cross, local councils and the academic and education sector for the valuable role they play in disaster education, recovery and mitigation.

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RESEARCH FORUM

INVITED SPEAKERS (CONT)

Showcasing the latest in natural hazards science from around Australia and the world, the Research Forum takes place on the first day of the conference - Tuesday 1 September.

Steve Hamm Director Chief Fire Officers Association (UK)

Dr Stuart Minchin Chief- Environmental Geoscience Division Geoscience Australia

Paul Boissonneault Fire Chief Brant County Canadian Fire Service (Canada)

Steve Hamm is currently Director of Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) National Resilience Ltd in the UK and his portfolio deals with business development, assurance of resilience capabilities and overseas opportunities. He is also the Institution of Fire Engineers International President.

Dr Minchin is currently the Chief of the Environmental Geoscience Division of Geoscience Australia which includes the National Earth and Marine Observations, National Geospatial Information, and Groundwater groups. The Environmental Geoscience Division of Geoscience Australia is the centre of expertise in the Australian Government for environmental earth science issues and the custodian of national environmental geoscience data, information and knowledge.

Chief Paul Boissonneault is Fire Chief and Community Emergency Management Coordinator for the County of Brant in south western Ontario, Canada. He has been a Fire Chief for 11 years and was involved in the fire service in both career and volunteer capacities from firefighter to Chief Officer. He is currently the President for the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs (CAFC) and has been on the executive since 2008.

He has an extensive career background in the UK Fire and Rescue Service, his last appointment being as Assistant Commissioner with the London Fire Brigade until 2014 where he was responsible for Operational Resilience.

This portfolio covered aspects such as the Operational Planning for significant events in London, Contingency Planning for a range of scenarios, delivering the London Fire Brigade Emergency Planning responsibilities and the delivery of Specialist Operational Capabilities in London, including components of the Fire and Rescue National Resilience program.

For the Olympic and Paralympic games in 2012, Steve undertook a Gold Command role in London and was involved in the work required to ensure that specific measures for the games were correctly planned, implemented and tested.

Steve has a broad experience base in strategic operational command and has attended a number of high profile events in London, including the civil disturbances of 2011 and the Vauxhall helicopter crash in central London in 2013.

Steve has over 25 years of experience in the fire and rescue service following a period of service in the Royal Air Force.

He is also a Chartered Fire Engineer.

Dr Minchin has previously been responsible for the Environmental Observation and Landscape Science (EOLS) research program in CSIRO which supports decision-making for natural resource management and investment.

The EOLS research program focused on Environmental Earth Observation, Soil and Landscape Science and Advanced Environmental Information Systems.

Dr Minchin has a strong track record in many areas of environmental science, particularly in the water resources management area. He has an extensive background in the management and modelling of environmental data and the online delivery of data, modelling and reporting tools for improved natural resource management. Stuart has represented Australia in key international forums including serving as Co-Chair of the Science and Technology Committee of the Intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations and also currently serves on the Editorial Board of the international Journal Ecological Indicators.

With more than 30 presentations from universities and agencies across Australia and internationally, the Research Forum is not just for scientists. It provides a great opportunity for emergency management personnel and end users to learn about current research and connect with researchers.

The Research Forum emphasises the diversity of the research being conducted across all hazards, and will provide the opportunity for focused discussions between the research community and emergency managers on industry issues.

The science on show will highlight the significant research available to fire, land management and emergency service agencies, including the work of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. The Research Forum and the entire conference present a great opportunity for all practitioners to learn what we

are discovering about today’s biggest challenges, and finding ways to use this knowledge every day to make our firefighters and communities safer.

Topics covered include the latest research into fire weather, flood science, community resilience, the economics of natural hazards, satellite systems and volunteering. Keynote speakers include Dr Mark Finney from the US Forest Service, Dr Alex Zelinsky from the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, and Dr Paul Willis, Director of RiAus. Partnerships are one of the most important aspects of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, and the Research Forum provides a great opportunity to connect emergency service practitioners with researchers to discuss the latest natural hazards science, contributing to the learning culture of the conference.

Chief Boissonneault has served on many committees for the CAFC including government relations, labour relations, fire and life safety and the membership committee as a co-chair. He is currently enrolled at Justice Institute of British Columbia completing his final year of his Bachelor of Fire and Safety Studies.

He holds diplomas and certification as a Company Officer, Fire Officer IV, and Training Officer; and also holds a degree in Business administration. He is an Associate instructor for the Ontario Fire College for Incident Management and other Company officer programs.

Chief Boissonneault has represented the CAFC internationally in Belgium, Ireland and the United States in addition to being a guest presenter across Canada. He has been involved with advocacy and change for the CAFC with the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Advisory Council and activities with Transport Canada since the tragedy in Lac MĂŠgantic.

Chief Boissonneault is a proud recipient of the Queens Diamond Jubilee medal in 2013 and continues to work extremely hard for the Canadian Fire Service.

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RESEARCH FORUM PROGRAM | TUESDAY 01 SEPTEMBER STREAM 1

STREAM 2

STREAM 3

STREAM 4

Hall L

Riverbank 5

Riverbank 6

Riverbank 7

Time

Chair Richard Thornton, CEO (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC) 8:45

KEYNOTE: How do wildfires spread? Experimental research yields new insights.

Dr Mark Finney, Research Forester, US Forest Service

9:45

KEYNOTE: Research: the driver for mitigating future disasters.

Dr Alex Zelinsky, Chief Defence Scientist, Defence Science and Technology Organisation

10:30

MORNING TEA & POSTER SESSION – FOYER F Supporting Personal Resilience Chair Fiona Dunstan (CFS)

Volunteering Chair John Richardson (Australian Red Cross)

Satellite Systems Chair John Bally (BoM)

Land Management – Cultural Influences Chair Steve Rothwell, Chief Fire Officer (NTFRS)

11:00 – 11:30

“We’ve got trouble getting around but we’re still alright.”

Self-identities of disability and risk and the implications for bushfire planning.

Dr Danielle Every (CQUniversity)

The future of non-traditional emergency volunteering: what will it look like and how can it work?

Dr Blythe McLennan (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & RMIT University)

Verification of soil moisture from land surface models and traditional soil dryness indices.

Dr Vinod Kumar (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Bureau of Meteorology)

Culturally appropriate mapping tools for informing two-way fire management planning in remote indigenous north Australian communities.

Dr Andrew Edwards (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Charles Darwin University)

11:30 – 12:00

Developing a targeted resilience intervention for the primary prevention of PTSD. Petra Skeffington (Curtin University)

The integration of informal volunteers into animal emergency management: experiences from the 2015 South Australian bushfires.

Dr Mel Taylor (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & University of Western Sydney)

How will the new satellite navigation systems help with the provision of information and warnings?

Prof John Handmer (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & RMIT University)

Science in motion: knowledge practices and prescribed burning in southwest Victoria.

Dr Tim Neale (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Western Sydney University)

12:00

LUNCH – FOYER F Supporting Community Resilience Chair Tony Jarrett (NSWRFS)

Engineering for Natural Hazards Chair Dr Andy Barnicoat (GeoScience Australia)

Economics of Natural Hazards Chair Monique Blason (SA Dept of Premier and Cabinet)

Land Management - Science Chair Liam Fogarty (DELWP)

13:00 – 13:30

Disaster Management: Building resilient systems to aid recovery.

Prof Deborah Bunker (University of Sydney)

The role of extreme value analysis to enhance defendable space for construction practice and planning in bushfire prone environments.

Grahame Douglas (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Western Sydney University)

A framework for an integrated model that supports multi-hazard mitigation planning.

Dr Jeffrey Newman (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & The University of Adelaide)

Improved assessment of grassland fuels in multiple jurisdictions across Australia.

Danielle Wright (Country Fire Authority)

13:30 – 14:00

Risk and protective factors for bushfire resilience and recovery.

A/Prof Lisa Gibbs (The University of Melbourne)

Improvements and difficulties associated with the seismic assessment of infrastructure in Australia.

Ryan Hoult (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & The University of Melbourne)

Bringing hazard and economic modellers together: a spatial platform for damage and loss visualisation.

Dr Prasad Bhattacharya (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Deakin University) Dr Yiqun Chen (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & The University of Melbourne)

A 40-year mesoscale gridded fire weather climatology for Victoria.

Dr Sarah Harris (Monash University)

14:00 – 14:30

Shared responsibility – shades of grey.

Dr Sarah Redshaw (Charles Sturt University)

Estimating floodway damage using repair cost for elements.

Weena Lokuge (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & University of Southern Queensland)

Risk ownership and natural hazards: across systems and across values.

Roger Jones (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Victoria University)

Understanding present and future bushfire hazard reduction burn windows in NSW. Hamish Clarke (NSW Office of Environment & Heritage)

14:30

AFTERNOON TEA – EXHIBITION HALL Child Centred Disaster Risk Reduction Chair Andrew Richard (NSW SES)

Flood Science Chair Prof Alistar Roberston (UWA)

Fire Weather Chair Shane Wiseman (DEWNR)

Improved modeling of extreme storm surges and waves along the Australian coast.

Dr Yasha Hetzel (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & The University of Western Australia)

Linking local wildfire dynamics to pyroCb development.

Rick McRae (ACT Emergency Services Authority)

Combining hydrologic and hydraulic models for real time flood forecasting.

Dr Yuan Li (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Monash University)

Large-eddy simulations of pyro-convection and its sensitivity to environmental conditions.

Dr Will Thurston (Bureau of Meteorology)

Exploiting Computer Technology Chair Damien Killalea (TFS) 15:00 – 15:30

15:30 – 16:00

A bushfire evacuation planning service utilising multiple simulation systems.

Dr Kent Steer (IBM) Mapping it out: a user-centred design framework for WebGIS public warnings.

Yinghui Cao (PhD Candidate, University of Western Australia)

Symposium on child-centred disaster risk reduction: what do we know, what do major stakeholders want?

Prof Kevin Ronan (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & CQUniversity)

Chair Michael Rumsewicz (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC) 16:00

KEYNOTE: Living with bushfires: from a personal to a global perspective.

Dr Paul Willis, Director, RiAus

17:00

WELCOME & AWARDS

18:00

WELCOME DRINKS

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DAY 1 | PROGRAM WEDNESDAY 02 SEPTEMBER STREAM 1

STREAM 2

STREAM 3

STREAM 4

STREAM 5

Hall L

Hall M

Hall N

City Rooms 1 & 2

City Rooms 3 & 4

Time

Chair Greg Mullins, President (AFAC) / Commissioner (FRNSW) 8:30

OPENING CEREMONY

9:15

KEYNOTE: A new framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Feng Min Kan, Head, UNISDR Asia-Pacific, United Nations

10:00

KEYNOTE: Insuring resilience: how we need some Aussie rules to handle global natural hazard risk.

Dr Rowan Douglas, CEO Capital Science and Policy Practice, Willis Group

10:45

MORNING TEA & POSTER SESSION – EXHIBITION HALL Emergency Medical Response Chair Jim Higgins, CEO (MFB)

Diversity Chair Ann De Piaz (CFS)

Cyclones and Storms Chair Chris Beattie, Chief Officer (SA SES)

Major Urban Events Chair Peter Button (MFS)

Strategic Issues Chair Darrin McKenzie (DELWP)

11:45 – 12:15

Australian emergency management – experiences, lessons and changes from responses over the last 20 years.

Dr Bill Griggs (Royal Adelaide Hospital)

Towards inclusion and diversity in urban fire services.

Margaret Allison (Margaret Allison Consulting)

Investigation of damage: Brisbane 27 November 2014 severe storm event.

Korah Parackal (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Cyclone Testing Station, James Cook University)

Docklands high-rise apartment fire managing community consequence case study.

David Youssef (Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board, VIC)

Emergency management – our other challenges in a changing world.

Adam Dent, Commissioner (NSW State Emergency Service)

12:15 – 12:45

Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Africa and the world 12 months on.

Lyn Gilbert (Western Sydney Local Health Network, University of Sydney)

Bring your lipstick.

Ariana Henderson and Sandra Robinson (Parks Victoria)

Tropical Cyclone Lam and Tropical Cyclone Marcia.

Ben Millington (NSW Rural Fire Service) Brian Cox (Queensland Fire and Emergency Services)

2014 G20 Leaders’ Summit Brisbane and Finance Ministers’ Meeting Cairns: Queensland Fire and Emergency Services challenges and lessons learnt Jeff King (Queensland Fire and Emergency Services)

International firefighting - Becoming the norm?

Ian Tanner (Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, SA) David Nugent (Parks Victoria)

Floods Chair Dermot Barry (SA SES) PhD Student Caroline Wenger (ANU)

Information and Warnings Chair Amanda Leck (AFAC) PhD Student Melanie Baker Jones (QUT)

Emergency Management into the Future Chair Wayne Gregson, Commissioner (DFES) PhD Student Graham Dwyer (UniMelb)

Community Resilience Chair Mick Ayre (CFS) PhD Student Emma Phillips (MQ)

An analysis of human fatalities from flood hazards in Australia, 1900-2014.

Dr Katherine Haynes and Andrew Gissing (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Risk Frontiers)

Reviewing warnings and information across the country.

Reegan Key (Emergency Management Victoria)

Queensland: setting the standard for disaster management.

Iain McKenzie, Inspector General (Inspector General Emergency Management, Queensland)

Building sustainable community resilience through a model of shared responsibility.

Julie Harris and Danny Green (Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board, VIC)

Measuring community flood awareness and preparedness in the Maitland area and lower Hunter Valley, NSW. Neil Dufty (Molino Stewart)

Building information operations in South Australia: challenges and opportunities.

Fiona Dunstan (SA Country Fire Service)

Emergency management for the twenty-first century.

Roger Jones OAM (Monash University)

Not everything that counts can be counted.

A multi-agency approach to measuring community engagement to optimise program and project impact.

Andrew Richards (NSW State Emergency Service)

Building community awareness of flood risk in South Australia.

Chrissie Bloss (Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, SA)

Are the media undermining agency safety messaging?

Phil Campbell (NSW State Emergency Service)

Improving interoperability in UK emergency response.

Steve Hamm (Chief Fire Officers Association)

Communicating bushfire risk.

Suriya Vij and Stephanie Carr (Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning, VIC)

Diversity Chair Stuart Ellis, CEO (AFAC)

Fuels and Fires Chair Mike Williams (DEWNR)

Multi-sectoral Approach Chair Euan Ferguson, Chief Officer (CFA)

A New Way of Working Chair Paul Fletcher (MFS)

A bushfire fuel classification for Australia.

Gary Featherston (AFAC)

Coal Mine Emergency Management Taskforce - partnering with industry to build resilience.

Peter Schmidt (Emergency Management Victoria)

Working for our people: the changed relationship between NZPFU and NZFS. Derek Best (New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union) Leigh Deuchars (New zealand Fire Service)

Planned burn evaluation spring 2014.

Emily Doran (Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning, VIC)

The response to maritime environmental emergencies – a multi-sectoral approach.

Jamie Storrie (Australian Maritime Safety Authority)

Building capacity in a command environment – a joint FRNSW/AIPM initiative.

Kenneth Murphy (Fire and Rescue NSW) Andy Singh (Australian Institute of Police Management)

12:45

LUNCH – EXHIBITION HALL Community Recovery Chair Ian Mannix (ABC)

13:45 – 14:20

14:20 – 14:50

14:50 – 15:20

15:20

PANEL: Afterburn – the long-story of recovery.

Moira Fahy, Director Afterburn (Please note this session will include the screening of Afterburn followed by a panel discussion) Euan Ferguson, Chief Fire Officer (Country Fire Authority) Ronnie Faggotter (Department for Communities and Social Inclusion) Andrew Coghlan (Australian Red Cross) Richard Thornton, CEO (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC)

AFTERNOON TEA – EXHIBITION HALL Health and Wellbeing Chair Gavin Freeman, A/Chief Officer (TFS)

15:50 – 16:20

Australian Firefighters’ Cancer and Mortality Study.

A/Prof Deborah Glass (Monash University) PANEL: Is our culture good for us?

Jim Higgins, CEO (Metropolitan Fire & Emergency Services Board) Adam Dent, Commissioner (NSW State Emergency Service) Ariana Henderson (Parks Victoria) Bronnie Mackintosh (Fire & Rescue NSW) Lauren Wait (SA Country Fire Service)

16:20 – 16:50

Perception and reality: e-entry into fire scenes should be subject to physiological monitoring.

Anthony Walker (ACT Fire & Rescue)

18:30

TRES FIESTA (GALA DINNER) – ADELAIDE CONVENTION CENTRE

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DAY 2 | PROGRAM THURSDAY 03 SEPTEMBER STREAM 1

STREAM 2

STREAM 3

STREAM 4

STREAM 5

Hall L

Hall M

Hall N

City Rooms 1 & 2

City Rooms 3 & 4

Time

Chair Stuart Ellis, CEO (AFAC) 8:30

KEYNOTE: Diversity: friend or enemy of cohesion?

Group Captain Catherine McGregor, Royal Australian Air Force

9:15

KEYNOTE: Beyond the obvious: using social media to build resilient communities Trefor Munn-Venn, CEO, Rhapsody Strategies Major Incidents Chair Andrew Lawson (CFS)

Modelling and Hazards Chair Greg Nettleton, Chief Officer (CFS)

Professionalisation Chair Paul Baxter, National Commander (NZFS)

USAR and Earthquakes Chair Stephen Griffin, CEO (VICSES)

Volunteering Chair Leanne Adams (SA SES)

The Eden Valley Fire, South Australia, January 2014.

Paul Bierman (Bureau of Meteorology)

On a journey to a profession.

Stuart Ellis, CEO (AFAC)

Going to the dogs – interoperability lessons identified in USAR canine team development.

Sue Pritchard (NSW State Emergency Service)

Communities are changing …Volunteering is changing … What will your brigade/unit look like in 2035?

Ali Martin (Country Fire Authority, VIC)

Flood, fire, storm and drought: new tools and technologies to support national disaster mitigation, preparation and response.

Dr Stuart Minchin, Chief of Environmental Geoscience Division (Geoscience Australia)

Professional pathways design and implementation project - transforming capability and culture through a cohesive training framework.

Brad Delavale (Department of Fire and Emergency Services, WA)

An earthquake loss scenario for Adelaide.

Valentina Koschatzky (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Risk Frontiers)

Recruitment of volunteers – Queensland State Emergency Service.

Alan Hatcher (Queensland Fire and Emergency Services)

Fire Behaviour Chair Joe Buffone (EMV) PhD Student Rachael Quill (UNSW)

Indigenous Chair Shane Wiseman (DEWNR) PhD Student Katherine van Wezel (CDU)

Engaging Youth Chair Bob Stevenson (SA SES) PhD Student Avianto Amri (MQ)

Managing the Recovery Chair Naomi Stephens (NPWS) PhD Students Billy Haworth (USYD) and Steve Sutton (CDU)

Developing enterprise opportunities and resilience in remote north Australian communities.

Kamaljit Sangha (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Charles Darwin University)

What do we do to enable our most junior to lead?

Matt Heysmand (NSW Police)

Veterinary emergency management at the Sampson Flat bushfire in South Australia, January 2015.

Rachel Westcott (South Australian Veterinary Emergency Management)

Protecting remote community assets from the adverse impact of bushfires through increased resilience and sharing responsibilities.

Trevor Tasker (Department of Fire and Emergency Services, WA)

Engaging youth in emergency services: a shared responsibility.

Deanna Roa and Judith Stanley (United Fire Brigades Association)

Rising from the rubble: the critical role of GIS technology in the 2015 South Australian fires.

Gary Maguire (Department of Communities & Social Inclusion, SA)

The Sydney 2014 forecasting demonstration project – a step from research to operations.

Dr Michael Foley and Dr Mika Peace (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Bureau of Meteorology)

Fire stories from country.

Bluey Devine (SA Country Fire Service)

Engaging and empowering the future: the role and importance of giving young people a voice as volunteers in the EM sector.

Ruth Tovo and Stewart Germaine (Youth Advisory Committee, SA Country Fire Service)

Electronic tablets in the field; technology transforming door to door operations.

Howard Colvin and Dawn Hendrick (Australian Red Cross)

Health & Wellbeing Chair Katarina Carroll, Commissioner (QFES)

Educating Young People Chair Glenn Benham (MFS)

A Framework for Risk Chair Grant Pelton (DEWNR)

Fire Systems & Tools Chair Mike Wouters (DEWNR)

Information Management Chair Greg Saunder (ForestrySA)

Psychological wellbeing takes focus in CFA. Tanya Di Michele (Country Fire Authority, VIC)

SAMFS road awareness program - lessons learned from a decade of road awareness education.

Rodney Campbell (SA Metropolitan Fire Service)

A fire information management system to support changing practices.

Simeon Telfer (Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, SA)

The Tasmania Fire Service knowledge management project - harnessing our experiences.

Nicholas Wilson (Tasmania Fire Service)

14:40 – 15:10

Fit for duty: fitness of firefighters.

Stephen Glassock and Sheryl Navin (NSW Rural Fire Service)

Teacher-led fire safety in schools.

Gwynne Brennan (Country Fire Authority, VIC)

Development and testing of the NSWRFS Prescribed burn forecast tool.

Simon Heemstra (NSW Rural Fire Service)

Information and communication system for Fire & Rescue NSW Community Fire Units.

Samantha Colwell (Fire & Rescue NSW)

15:10

AFTERNOON TEA – EXHIBITION HALL

15:40

CLOSING PANEL: Generation Next - Changing the future for emergency management.

Chair Tam Hoang (Youth Beyond Disasters)

16:30

CLOSING CEREMONY

10:05 – 10:35

10:35 – 11:05

Recent Canadian disasters – lessons learned and paths forward.

Paul Boissonneault, Fire Chief (Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs)

11:05

MORNING TEA – EXHIBITION HALL Disaster Risk Reduction Chair Greg Crossman, CEO (MFS) PhD Student Graeme Riddell (Adelaide Uni)

11:35 – 12:10

12:10 – 12:40

12:40 – 13:10

13:10

14:10 – 14:40

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Disaster risk reduction – an international perspective, and implications for the Australian EM sector.

Damien Killalea (Tasmania Fire Service)

National strategy for disaster resilience.

Aaron Verlin (Attorney-General’s Department)

Enabling adaptive capacities for disaster resilience in Australia: what role for government policy?

Susan Hunt (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & Australian National University)

PANEL: An enhanced National Fire Danger Rating System for Australia: Where are we now?

Liam Fogarty (Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning, VIC) Simon Heemstra (NSW Rural Fire Service) John Bally (Bureau of Meteorology) Michael Rumsewicz (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC)

LUNCH – EXHIBITION HALL

AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK afac.com.au/conference

PANEL: Building resilience in South Australia: a better understanding of risk.

Dr Jeffrey Newman (Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC & The University of Adelaide) Edward Pikusa and Liz Connell (SA Fire and Emergency Services Commission)

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CONFERENCE DEVELOPMENT SESSIONS

Development Session 1: Compressed Air Foam Systems a new beginning Compressed Air Foam Systems (CAFS) were first developed during the Second World War but never became a mainstream technology due to the cost involved in implementing them. In recent years costs have come down and operational issues simplified, which has led to renewed interest in the technology.

The purpose of this workshop is to expose participants to industry developments, end user experiences and environmental aspects so that ongoing dialogue amongst current and potential users can be generated based on industry knowledge & experience.

At the conclusion of the workshop delegates will be encouraged to visit the conference trade exhibition before joining the closing keynote session and conference welcome.

Time: 9:00am - 2:30pm Tuesday 1 September Location: Riverbank Room 8, Adelaide Convention Centre

Development Session 2: Brown Hill and Keswick Creeks flood management – issues with managing risk and engaging the community – the legacy of past planning decisions This field study tour will provide delegates with a detailed insight into the many and varied problems associated with the management of flood risk in the Brown Hill and Keswick Creeks in southern and western Adelaide.

Delegates will see at firsthand, how the legacy of past planning decisions with respect to this creek system, has resulted in complex flood risk issues, the mitigation of which is equally complex. A number of community lobby groups have formed to oppose potential flood mitigation solutions, resulting in delays, cost overruns and high levels of community concern.

The study tour will highlight these issues and the difficult task that governments at commonwealth, state and local levels have in mitigating the serious risks of flooding, whilst appeasing the genuine concerns of local community members.

Time: 9:00am – 1.00pm Friday 4 September Departure Point: Adelaide Convention Centre

Development Session 3: Managing bushfire risk in the urban interface – a multi-faceted challenge

Development Session 5: Mapping and location technologies – are you up to speed with all the possibilities?

This field study tour will provide an insight into both the complexity and successes of South Australia’s holistic approach to bushfire risk reduction.

Spatial information technologies comprise a range of disciplines which come together to provide valuable input across all hazard types. More commonly referred to as ‘mapping’, but definitely not just about making maps, spatial sciences are at the heart of dispatching, resource allocation, warnings, pre incident planning, incident statistical reporting, fire modelling, remote sensing, plume modelling, smartphones and field mapping - all key decision support areas in emergency management.

A coordinated program, involving various state and local government authorities and the community, has led to increased community education and awareness, better fire management planning and risk assessment, improved landscape fuel reduction burning and better informed biodiversity management.

The study tour is designed to showcase how the cooperative approach is addressing the complex elements of bushfire risk, with the goal of leading to safer communities and more resilient built and environmental assets.

Time: 9:00am - 3:00pm Friday 4 September Departure Point: Adelaide Convention Centre

Development Session 4: Major fires at bulk waste recycling facilities - findings, recommendations and changes to practice During this field study tour delegates will be provided with two case studies representative of a series of major industrial fires that have occurred in Adelaide’s north western suburbs over the past five years.

The first of these case studies; the Wingfield petrochemical fire, was a rapidly escalating fuel fire that produced extraordinary levels of radiant heat and explosions. The second case study involved a fire in a waste management facility at Wingfield, fought in extreme temperatures and high winds across six days. Both of these fires posed significant risks to firefighters, adjoining premises and the environment.

These are reliant on the underlying principles of consistency, standards and skilled workers across jurisdictions.

Through full presentations and lightning talks, this workshop will showcase examples of the use and the growing demands of mapping and location technologies to not only support our emergency service sector workforce, but also our public information demands.

During this professional development opportunity, delegates will see presentations from users and those who manage these systems in emergency service organisations from across Australia, along with some of the major vendors of spatial technologies. You will hear about how their systems held up to demand in past crisis, what could have been better and what the future holds from an ever increasing need for spatial solutions. There will also be a discussion panel and briefings from the body linking all jurisdictions, the Emergency Management Spatial Information Network Australia.

Development Session 6: The benefits of the Himawari-8 Satellite The Japanese recently launched their new geostationary weather satellite, Himawari-8. Compared to the current satellite, MTSAT-2, it has twice the channels, twice the resolution and the repeat time has gone from hourly to ten minutes.

Opportunities for emergency managers are far greater than the simple mathematics suggest and are beyond what Australian emergency managers are accustomed to. New classes of decision support may become readily available, and we need to prepare for this. It must be realised that if the end-users do not know what to ask for, the providers will not be meeting the full potential.

During this workshop delegates will be exposed to the potential new capabilities that will emerge from the commissioning of Himawari-8.

Time: 9:00am-3:00pm Friday 4 September Location: City Room 2, Adelaide Convention Centre

This session is proudly sponsored

by Motorola Solutions.

“Motorola Solutions - partnering with AFAC to bring knowledge to the emergency services”

PCDS 7: Beyond engagement: building the social media program your community needs During this master class presented by Trefor Munn-Venn, delegates will explore the distinctions between the “social” and the “media” and walk through why most efforts online do not generate the desired outcomes. An overview of the B-A-R Model will showcase how to drive behavioural changes in the way followers perceive, think and act. After an overview of the model, delegates will engage in an interactive workshop to map out their own strategies.

The session will also help define and refine delegate’s understanding of the voice that their organisation conveys and methods to ensure consistency across their social media presence. Delegates will learn to create social media posts and messages based on the anatomy of the perfect post, identifying the right themes to focus on and exploring how to use Neuro-Linguistic Programming to improve the effectiveness of messages.

Finally, the session will address the key issues to take into account in order to put the strategic and tactical plan developed into action.

Time: 9:00am - 3:00pm Friday 4 September Location: City Room 3, Adelaide Convention Centre

Time: 9:00am - 3:00pm Friday 4 September Location: City Room 1, Adelaide Convention Centre

Delegates will travel to the site of these fires and be provided with an overview of the findings, recommendations for agency practice as well as changes to standards and codes of practice for waste management in South Australia.

Time: 10:30am-2:30pm Friday 4 September Departure Point: Adelaide Fire Station (MFS), 99 Wakefield St, Adelaide 20

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ADD-ONS Breakfast Session

Innovation Zone Program

Exhibitor: Drager Time: 7:30am – 8:15am on Wednesday 3 September City Rooms 1 & 2, Adelaide Convention Centre

The Innovation Zone is located in the Exhibition Hall and will showcase the latest exhibitor wares. Delegates will also have the chance to hear about emerging trends and new industry initiatives.

Introducing the new generation of firefighter COMMS

Exhibitor: Drager Time: 12:45pm – 1:15pm on Wednesday 3 September

Chair: Christian Ferris Presenter: Hauke Kastens Global Product Manager for Communication Systems Dräger Safety AG & KGaA Lübeck, Germany During his eight year career with Dräger, Hauke has carried out numerous visits to Fire Services around the globe; he has gained international experience in Firefighting processes and communication structures and holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and Business Management. Hauke will present an overview of fire ground communication, focusing on the challenges of communication during Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) and hazmat operations and introduce Dräger’s new FPS-COM 5000 and 7000 communication systems from conception to launch.

Drager will be providing a demonstration of the new Dräger FPS-COM 5000 and 7000 communication systems during a lunchtime session, for further information see Introducing the new generation of firefighter COMMS (right).

Exhibitor: Sheppard Time: 1:15pm – 1:45pm on Wednesday 3 September

Teaming: Benefits for ESOs Teaming refers to the process of developing the mindsets and practice of team work without the benefit of stable team structures. Teaming can deliver two major benefits to emergency services organisations (ESO).

Firstly, ESOs must have the capacity to react rapidly and flexibly to critical events that can arise with little or no warning. Teaming allows an ESO to be flexible in harnessing the talents of staff and volunteers to respond to critical events within short time frames by rapidly assembled teams.

Secondly, teaming recognises that critical event management in Australia in the 21st century will require new solutions to known or familiar problems as well as new solutions to new problems and encourages team based creativity and problem solving. This is achieved through organising for learning, a style of leadership that promotes learning and continuous improvement as a way of working. Using this style of leadership, leaders encourage speaking up, collaboration, experimentation (under safe conditions) and reflection to encourage their teams to develop alternatives to existing solutions that may no longer work in the rapidly changing landscape of incident response.

In 2016 Brisbane will host the largest and most important emergency services and public safety conference and trade exhibition in Australasia - AFAC16. The event will mark the beginning of a new partnership with Deutsche Messe Group of Companies, organiser of INTERSCHUTZ, the world-leading exhibition for firefighting, fire protection and rescue. Held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, the theme for AFAC16 is Mitigation - Response - Recovery: Getting the balance right.

Emergency and disaster management has advanced dramatically over the past five years with fire and emergency service agencies worldwide implementing new and innovative ways to mitigate and respond to disasters. Recent worldwide catastrophic events have identified the need for better recovery capability. This year’s conference will take a detailed look into how agencies are “getting the balance right,” within new, diverse, inclusive, multi-agency disaster management services.

afacconference.com.au | #AFAC16

KNOWLEDGE LOUNGE E-Poster Terminals

The AFAC and Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC Conference are delighted once again to have the popular Knowledge Lounge as a feature of this year’s conference.

Now in its sixth consecutive year, The Knowledge Lounge, sponsored by Dräger, gives delegates the opportunity to meet with speakers, view and vote on posters and network with other delegates.

During breaks between conference activities all speakers, including some of the leading speakers and researchers featured at the conference, will be invited to the Knowledge Lounge to give delegates the opportunity to engage in more informal discussions. It’s a great opportunity and all delegates are encouraged to utilise the lounge and the speakers it will host.

This year as well as posters being displayed in the exhibition area, there will also be two E-Poster Terminals for viewing the displayed posters in electronic format. The electronic posters may have links to supporting and extra information.

Both terminals will be located near the AFAC and Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC stand.

Don’t to vo forget your te for fav posteourite r!

Reme

m vote ber – only per d elega 1 te.

Poster Voting People’s Choice Award

Once again this year you have the chance to cast your vote for what you believe is the best poster in the Knowledge Lounge.

Take the opportunity to meet with the poster authors over morning tea to discuss their project or research.

There are three ways to vote: 1. Send a tweet with the poster number you want to vote for using the hashtag #AFAC15 2. Fill in a voting form - available at the AFAC and Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC Stand and place in the barrel provided 3. There is a tear-off voting form in your pocket delegate handbook which you can fill in and place in the barrels located within the poster area of the Trade Expo.

4. Via the web app – each poster abstract can be given the ‘Thumbs Up’ – simply find the abstract and press the ‘Thumbs Up’ button.

The winning poster author will be presented with their award at the closing ceremony on Thursday afternoon. The Judges’ Poster Award will also be presented at the closing ceremony.

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GENERAL INFORMATION

All information is accurate at time of printing, but subject to change.

Venue Adelaide Convention Centre North Terrace, Adelaide South Australia, Australia, 5000 Ph: +61 8 8212 4099 The conference registration desk is located in the Western Entrance foyer on the ground level of the Adelaide Convention Centre and the Trade Exhibition is located in halls F, G and H on the ground level.

Morning tea and lunch for the Research Forum will be held in Foyer F. The Research Forum afternoon tea and all breaks and catering on Wednesday and Thursday will be held in the Trade Exhibition area.

The Research Forum and Main Conference sessions will be held in the Adelaide Convention Centre. Please see the venue map for session room locations.

Registration The Research Forum registration is for Tuesday and includes: • Entry to all sessions on Tuesday • All delegate materials (conference app, name badge, satchel and handbook) • Morning tea, afternoon tea and lunch on Tuesday • The Conference Welcome & Awards and Welcome Drinks commencing on Tuesday at 5:00pm The Conference Two Day Registration is registration for Wednesday and Thursday and includes: • Entry to all sessions on Wednesday and Thursday • All delegate materials (conference app, name badge, satchel and handbook) • Morning tea, afternoon tea and lunch daily • The Conference Welcome & Awards and Welcome Drinks commencing on Tuesday at 5:00pm • The Conference Dinner on Wednesday at the Adelaide Convention Centre

record contact information such as name, email and organisation. Exhibitors will ask delegates if they give permission for their badges to be scanned.

Recycling your Name Badges and Lanyards There will be a box at the registration desk to place your lanyards and name badges in.

Wi-Fi Information Visitors to the Adelaide Convention Centre will have access to free wireless internet.

This service is shared by all conference delegates, event attendees and general public in the building, and is designed for basic internet browsing, web-based emails, social media sites (Facebook, Twitter) and app use.

To access the free Wi-Fi, join the “AFAC2015” network and enter the password “adelaide15”.

Dress Code The dress code is smart casual for the entire conference including the welcome function. Uniforms are not required.

The Speaker Preparation Room On arrival at the conference, speakers should let the registration desk know they are speaking at the conference.

Presentations are to be loaded into the central system located in the speaker preparation room. This is located in room L1B on the ground floor to the left of the conference registration desk on the way to the Exhibition Hall foyer. Presenters are asked to load all slides at least a full session in advance of your session. A technician will be on hand to assist with any transfer/loading issues and to help you check your presentation.

Poster Viewing

Name Badges

Research Forum

Delegates are required to wear their name badges to all conference and catered sessions. Uniformed security is in attendance on the doors of the Trade Exhibition and name badges are required to gain access. To aid in the collection of contact details for exhibitors, each name badge has been printed with a barcode which is unique to each individual. Some exhibitors will have a scanner which will be able to scan name badge barcodes and

A poster author session is scheduled for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Research Forum on Tuesday from 10:30 – 11:00am in Foyer F outside the entry to the exhibition hall (posters will be moved into the exhibition area near the AFAC and Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC stand after lunch). Poster presenters must remain with their poster to answer questions and engage with colleagues for the duration of this session. Posters will be displayed

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AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK afac.com.au/conference

for you and will remain hanging for the duration of the conference.

Main Conference There is a designated poster author session programmed for Wednesday from 10:45 – 11:45am during the morning tea break in the Knowledge Lounge located near the AFAC and Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC stand. Posters will be displayed on your behalf on Tuesday afternoon and we ask that you remove your own poster by the end of lunch on Thursday. The poster numbers are listed later in this handbook and correspond with the appropriate number on the display panels.

E-Poster Terminals As well as posters being displayed in the exhibition area, there will also be two E-Poster terminals for viewing the displayed posters in electronic format.

The electronic posters may have links to supporting and extra information. Both terminals will be located near the AFAC and Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC stand.

Social Program Welcome Function The traditional Welcome Function will be held after the Conference Welcome & Awards at 6:00pm on Tuesday in the Trade Exhibition area. There will be finger food and refreshments and a chance to catch up with old friends. Name badges or purchased tickets are required to gain admission. All full conference delegates are entitled to attend and can gain access with your name badge. Additional tickets can be purchased at the registration desk.

Conference Dinner Be ready to experience the adventure that awaits us in Adelaide, the Festival State.

An exciting night of frivolity and fun has been planned, with festival attractions and a spectacular highlight to top of the evening. Great food and wine from the Adelaide region will tantalise your taste buds, including an array of sweet delights to tempt us all. This is a night not to be missed!

Table allocations - delegates are asked to place name card (located behind your name badge) on the table allocation sheet next to the conference registration desk by the end of afternoon tea on Wednesday.

Time: 6:30pm on Wednesday 2 September for pre-dinner drinks, dinner will commence at 7:15pm Location: Foyer F, Adelaide Convention Centre Dress: Jacket (tie optional) /Cocktail

Coupon Book The AFAC and Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC conference Trade Exhibitors will reward you for visiting their stand! Inside your satchel you will find a coupon book.

Participating exhibitors are offering an item of their choosing when you present their coupon at their stand. Visit them all and you won’t miss a thing!

Join the Conversation Keep up to date with the latest conference news on Twitter by following @AFACnews and @BNHCRC. Did you just hear from a speaker who said something thought provoking that you would like to share with other delegates? Did a panel session spark your imagination? Let us know what you think using the hashtag #AFAC15.

Tweets will be displayed at the AFAC and Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC stand. Just remember that in line with AFAC’s Social Media Policy, available on the website, tweets are to be respectful of speakers and other delegates.

Delegate Feedback The conference is the major event around knowledge sharing and learning for the industry and the large and varied program reflects the breadth and complexity of the business of AFAC members.

AFAC and the Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC are determined to continually improve and refine the conference for delegates.

Following the conference, you will receive an invitation to complete our online post conference delegate survey. We value your feedback and hope you will take the time to fill in the survey. The results are used to inform the planning of future AFAC and Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC conferences.

Accommodation

Official Conference Web App

Comfort Hotel Adelaide Riviera 31-34 North Terrace, Adelaide 5000 Ph: +61 8 8212 1700

Within the web app you can view the entire program, plan your own schedule, find abstracts and make notes during sessions that can be downloaded later. The web app will also provide you with:

InterContinental Adelaide North Terrace, Adelaide 5000 Ph: +61 8 8238 2400 Mercure Grosvenor Hotel 125 North Terrace, Adelaide 5000 Ph: + 61 8 8407 8888 Oaks Embassy 96 North Terrace, Adelaide 5000 Ph: +61 8 8124 9900 Oaks Horizons 104 North Terrace, Adelaide 5000 Ph: +61 8 8210 8000 Rockford Adelaide 164 Hindley St, Adelaide 5000 Ph: +61 8 8211 8255 Stamford Plaza Adelaide 150 North Terrace, Adelaide 5000 Ph: +61 8 8461 1111 The Playford 120 North Terrace, Adelaide 5000 Ph: +61 8 8213 888 All accommodation accounts need to be settled when delegates check out. This is the responsibility of the delegates.

Other Information Insurance The hosts and organisers are not responsible for personal accidents, any travel costs, or the loss of private property and will not be liable for any claims.

Delegates requiring insurance should make their own arrangements.

• Speaker abstracts and bios • Links to the full papers as they become live during the presenter’s session • The chance to give us your feedback and give a ‘Thumbs Up’ to a speaker or a session • Venue maps and floor plans • Sponsor and exhibitor information Downloading the AFAC and Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC 2015 web app is easy!

Step 1 Copy http://afac-2015.m.asnevents.com.au to your browser or use this QR code (below).

Step 2 You will be asked to install this web app onto your phone or tablet – tap the screen and the icon will appear on your home screen for future use .

For further benefits and instructions for Android devices please see staff at the registration desk.

You will need to know your Currinda login details. This is the email address you used to register for the conference and the password you created. If you need any help remembering your details, please see staff at the registration desk. BUT FIRST try your email address and password as your first name with no capitals.

Smoking - Smoking is not permitted in the venue.

Mobile Phones - Please ensure your mobile phone is turned to silent during any session you attend.

Message Board - A message board will be available at the registration desk on the ground floor foyer.

Disclaimer - The opinions of the speakers do not reflect the opinions or position of AFAC or the Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC.

afac.com.au/conference AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK

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EXHIBITOR LISTING

Organisation

Contact Person

Email Address

Contact Number

Booth (s)

Organisation

Contact Person

Email Address

Contact Number

Booth (s)

10 Tanker Air Carrier

John Gould

jgould@10tanker.com

+1 208 258-0130

37

Harcor Bag Supplies

Peter Schaede

peter@harcor.com.au

0425 210 087

57

3M Australia

Shaun Carrigan

sdcarrigan@mmm.com

0448 867 421

166

HATZ Diesel Australia

Sami Almogawish

sami@hatz.com.au

02 8788 7999

139

ACCUFIRE

John Stewart

accufire@bigpond.com

08 9755 2100

170

Healthwatch

Teagan Knight

t.knight@cfa.vic.gov.au

03 9262 8507

196,197

ADA

Sarah Goddard

sarah.goddard@ada.com.au

0418 533 530

52,53

Hino Motor Sales Australia

Tom Ayrton

tom.ayrton@hino.com.au

02 9914 6670

Adashi

Sanjay Kalasa

sanjay@adashisystems.com

+1 515 710-6394

173

97-99,118120

AFAC

Lynette White

lynette.white@afac.com.au

03 9418 5206

127-132

Honeywell (Industrial Safety)

Jason Jones

jason.jones2@honeywell.com

03 9464 2770

10

Akron Brass

Richard Hume

rhume@akronbrass.com

0409 720 790

50,51

Integrated Equipment

Bruce Elliott

elliott.bruce@bigpond.com

0419 923 586

32

ArcusIT Solutions / Pivotel

Mirjana Bece

mirjana.bece@arcusit.com.au

0402 079 404

188

IONNIC (Auto Electrical Imports)

Tyler Haub

tyler@aeimports.com

07 3274 3077

1,2

Australian Institute of Police Management

Andrew Singh

asingh@aipm.gov.au

0414 922 979

25

Isuzu Australia

Jeff Birdseye

jeff.birdseye@isuzu.net.au

03 9644 6666

Armatec A-Industries

Rob De Deken

rob@a-industries.com

+971 7243 8457

183

133-135,154156

Bell Environment

Errol Rodrigues

errol@bellenvironmental.com

03 9311 8460

198

Iveco Trucks Australia

Darren Swenson

darren.swenson@au.iveco.com

03 9238 2210

12,13,14

Steve Jones

steve.jones@jayrow.com.au

0467 670 202

38

Better Have Fire Rescue

Bob Howman

bob@betterhavefirerescue

0411 603 891

195

Jayrow Helicopters

Bluemont Pty Ltd

Arnaud Diemont

arnaud.diemont@bluemont.com.au

0431 870 223

157

JPI Australia

Nick Pearce

nick@jpihq.com

07 5665 8333

106

Eleanor Cronin

eleanor@kestrelaviation.com.au

03 5796 2373

35

Bruck Textiles

Elle Ozturk

eozturk@bruck.com.au

03 9418 1216

55,56,66

Kestrel/ Erickson

Bullard Asia Pacific

Vincent Lee

vincent_lee@bullard.com

+65 6745 0556

175

Kidde Australia (Chubb)

Alison Luckfiel

Alison.Luckfiel@kidde.com.au

03 9518 5563

76-78,91-93

Mike Steber

mike.steber@landgate.wa.gov.au

08 9387 0341

61

Burnology

Dylan Kendall

dylan@burnology.com

0468 681 558

201

Landgate - FireWatch

Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC

Vaia Smirneos

vaia.smirneos@bnhcrc.com.au

03 9412 9604

127-132

LHD Group Australia

Lauren Smith

lauren.smith@lhd-group.com

08 8139 7750

102,115,116

Mimi Mekdarasouk

mimi.mekdarasouk@lmco.com

0429 942 928

193,194

Bushfire Defence

Matt Wegener

matt@bushfiredefence.com.au

0424 872 790

189

Lockheed Martin Australia

Code 3 Australia

Damian Potter

dpotter@eccogroup.com

07 3293 7900

100,101

Mercedes-Benz Australia / Pacific

Ross Crabtree

ross.crabtree@daimler.com

03 9566 6358

191,192

Patrick Simmons

patricks@moldex.com

02 9838 7588

174

Capital Safety

Stephanie Cvetkovski

scvetkovski@capitalsafety.com

02 8753 7600

23

Moldex

CQUniversity

Helen Keen-Dyer

h.keendyer@cqu.edu.au

07 4150 7154

137

Motorola Solutions

Brooke Modd

DPXJ67@motorolasolutions.com

03 9847 7629

11a

John Spokes

john.spokes@msanet.com

02 9688 0333

152,153

Critchlow Australia

Jacob Pescini

jacob.pescini@critchlow.co.nz

+64 4910 6221

58

MSA The Safety Company

CTF2000 represented by Protective Technology

Stephen Atherton

stephen@protective.com.au

0411 332 267

48

NCC Apparel Pty Ltd/ Ballyclare Limited

Stephen Stewart

sstewart@nccapparel.com.au

03 8689 9104

27,28

Keith Sanderson

keith.sanderson@nederman.com.au

03 8720 3700

3,4,5

Denstock - Magnum Boots

Glenn Lill

glenn@denstock.com.au

0424 660 142

149,150

Nederman MikroPul Pty Ltd

DEUTZ Engines

Paul Carroll

carroll.p@deutz.com

03 9549 8400

81

Newlans Coachbuilders

Steve Newlan

newlans@bigpond.net.au

08 9444 1777

42,43

Hugh Whetham

hwhetham@noggin.com.au

02 9219 8811

187

Dräger Safety Pacific

Dea Stavar

dea.stavar@draeger.com

03 9244 7213

167,168

Noggin

Elliotts

Alan Metcalfe

alan.metcalfe@elliottaustralia.com

07 3265 2944

178,179

Norman G. Clark

Boyd Elliott

boyde@ngclark.com.au

03 9450 8200

96

Larry Gill

larry@offroadtrucks.com.au

08 9459 8911

6,7

Emergency Management Institute

Emma Dryburgh

AEMItransition@ag.gov.au

02 6141 3759

25

Offroad Trucks Australia

EMSINA

Steve Forbes

Steve.Forbes@act.gov.au

0428 104 736

17,18,19

Oliver Footwear

Odette Parker

odette.parker@honeywell.com

03 5320 0200

8a

Pac Fire Australia

Grant Bennett

Grant.Bennett@pacifichelmets.com

07 3441 7100

107-110

Estambril International

Charlotte Brandt

CharlotteBrandt@ estambrilinternational.com

+44 (0)7810 703107

171

Panasonic Toughbook

Jason Lee

jason.lee@au.panasonic.com

0488 498 675

10a

EVTA Group/ Storm King Mountain

Ross Luke

rluke@evtagroup.com.au

0417 125 634

34

Paskal

Russel Fernandes

rfernandes@paskal.com.au

0448 581 111

73

PBI Performance Products Inc

Ian Callaghan

ian.callaghan@pbiproducts.com

+44 (0)1332 290466

151

Federal Signal

Dugald Johnston

dugald@fedsigasiapacific.com

0413 150 590

169

Ferno Australia

Ces Thomson

cthomson@ferno.com.au

07 388 14999

89,90

Fieldair - Conair

Michelle Mead

contracts@fieldair.com.au

03 5339 4222

158

Phos-Chek Australia

Darren Webb

darren@phos-chek.com.au

02 6040 6900

49

Craig McDonald

craig.m@prepack.co.nz

+64 6350 0940

60

Fire Protection Technologies

Ashley Norton

ashley@fire-protection.com.au

03 9558 0715

165

Portion Pack Foods/ Prepack

Fire & Rescue NSW

Emmanuel Varipatis

emmanuel.varipatis@fire.nsw.gov.au

02 9742 7450

181, 182

PT Rescue

Peter Jenkin

peterjenkin@pthydraulics.com.au

03 9562 8800

68,69

Mark Costello

mark@quartermaster.com.au

02 9614 6404

70

Fire Rescue Safety Australia

Gary Ashwood

gary@frsa.com.au

08 9270 6777

26

Quartermaster Australia

Fire Response

Stuart Hampton

fireman@fireresponse.com.au

02 9838 9044

24

Quikcorp Fire Engineering

Andrew Geue

andrew@quikcorp.biz

07 5493 8944

71,72

Rob Stevenson

rob@raindancesystems.com.au

08 9417 8680

138

Fraser Fire & Rescue

Rob Walker

inbox@fraser.org.nz

64 4 5686819

29-31,44-46

Raindance Systems

Fujitsu US Digital Design Capita

Paul Case

paul.case@au.fujitsu.com

0400 930 962

22

RAPP Australia - Firelogistics

Simon Lloyd

sales@rappaustralia.com.au

03 5284 0208

16

Peta O’Donohue

peta.odonohue@sa.gov.au

0457 105 609

205

GAAM Emergency Products

Ian Price

iprice@tycoint.com

03 9464 8401

64,65

SA Emergency Services

Global Fire Solutions | WS Darley

Trevor Wing

twing@picknowl.com.au

0407 901 474

163,164

Safety Components

Sylvia Holmes

sholmes@safetycomponents.com

+1 864 280-2693

74,75

Lisa Judges

lisa.judges@theseagroup.com.au

02 99107500

184,185

Richard Donarski

Richard.Donarski@saiglobal.com

02 8206 6691

136

Global Super Tanker/ SNC

Bob Soelberg

RYNSALOT@aol.com

+1 855 910-4562

59

Safety Equipment Australia

Gore

Suzanne Prince

sprince@wlgore.com

+44 (0)7867 906277

88

SAI Global

Hainsworth

Julie Greenough

juliegreenough@hainsworth.co.uk

+44 (0)1132 570391

117

HAIX - Schuhe

Fatmir Musovic

f.musovic@haix.de

+49 (0)8751 862-5274

202

28

AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK afac.com.au/conference

afac.com.au/conference AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK

29

FLOOR PLAN

Scania Australia

Ron Szulc

ron.szulc@scania.com.au

03 9217 3300

8,82-87

Scott Safety

Kelly Valentine

kvalentine@tycoint.com

0459 811 404

54,67

SEI Industries

Humphrey Tam

htam@sei-ind.com

+1 778 288-7327

33

Sheppard Associates

Terence Sheppard

terence.sheppard@sheppard.com.au

08 8407 1332

36

Solar Developments Trading as PV Stop

Jim Foran

jim@pvstop.com.au

02 9652 5000

203

Solberg

Dave Pelton

dave.pelton@solbergfoam.com

0417 292 204

186

Stewart & Heaton Clothing

Steve Molloy

steve.molloy@shcc.com.au

03 8480 9700

79,80

TAFE NSW Riverina Institute

Pablo Villegas

pablo.villegas@tafensw.edu.au

02 6058 2863

180

Taipan Nowa

Terry Swain

terrys@taipanfootwear.com

03 9480 0199

111

TAIT

Anthony Blyth

anthony.blyth@taitradio.com

0419 175 257

140

Task Force Tips

John Donnelly

john.donnelly@tft.com

+1 219 241-5664

39,40

TenCate

Angela Rogers

a.rogers@tencate.com

+1 770 969-1000

160,161,177

TEXPORT

Warren Hoare

Warren.Hoare@texport.at

+43 (0)662 423244

159

Thermo-Gel

Colin Coleman

colincoleman@forestsystems.com.au

0417 056 295

63

Tracerlite

Nic Hart

nich@skyegroup.com.au

0417 917 645

172

TracPlus

Graham Johnston

graham.johnston@tracplus.com

+64 3477 8656

62

Transmax

Natalie Leach

natalie.leach@transmax.com.au

07 3355 8700

190

UL

Brian Hobbs

brian.hobbs@ul.com

+64 3940 4306

47

Varley - SEM Fire and Rescue

Jon Julian

jjulian@semfr.com.au

0448 936 886

103-105,112114

Westex by Milliken

Lolita Kordi

Lolita.Kordi@Milliken.com

0421 165 659

41

Working on Fire

Anita Brazao

anita.brazao@workingonfire.com

0409 726 289

162

Workwear Group

Pip Denby

pdenby@pacbrands.com.au

03 9608 8427

94,95

Zoll Medical Australia

Charlotte Isaac

cisaac@zoll.com

02 8424 8740

22a

6

5

Offroad Trucks

4

3

Nederman

2

ENTRANCE

1

Auto Electrical Imports

Sheppard 10 Tanker Associates Erickson EVTA Group SEI Integrated

7

Offroad Trucks

9, 141-148

35

34

33

32

29-31

38

39

40

41

42

43

44-46

Task Force Tips Westex by Newlans Global Milliken SuperTanker SNC Prepack Critchlow Harcor Bruck

60

59

58

61

62

63

57

56

64-5

Pac Fire

107-10

10a 11 205

Scott

Akron Brass Phoscheck

53

52

51

50

49

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

PT Rescue

QM

Quikcorp

Kidde Australia

80

76-8

75

74

88

89

90

91-3

94

95

Workwear

Ferno

JPI

Varley SEM

ECCO

106

103-5

102

111

112-14

115 116

101

LHD

97-9

117

118-20

73

25

Dr채ger Knowledge Lounge

142-4

141

140

139

145-7

148

149-50

151

152-3

Denstock

PBI

MSA

138

3M

FPT

Darley & Global

Working on Fire

166

165

163-5

162

171

172

174

Federal Accufire Estambril Skye Group Adashi Moldex Signal Int. Bushfire Arcusit/ Mercedes Benz Transmax Defence Pivotel Noggin

175

137

160-1 176

177

23

133-5 154-6

22a Zoll

Texport Field Air FFT

159

158

178-9 Elliots

Bullard Solberg

Isuzu

136

TenCate

157 180

TAFE Riverina

SEA Interspiro

A-Ind Fire & Rescue NSW

185 184

183

191-2

190

189 188

187

186

193-4

195

196-7

198

199 200 201

202 203

EMA

Haix Solar Development

Lockheed Martin Better HFR

Health Watch

Bell Environmental

Burnology

Fire Response Capital Safety

Raindance Systems CQUniversity SAI

Hatz

173

24

121-32

Tait

26

AIPM

AFAC & Bushfire Natural Hazards CRC

Dr채ger Knowledge Lounge

FRSA

96 NGC

Hainworth

Sasgar

170

Paskal

Hino

100

Sasgar

167-8

Safety Components

79

Motorola

169

ADA

54

Taipan

Dr채ger

48 Protective Tech

81

11a

10

47

55

Deutz Stewart & Heaton

82-87

27

UL

GAAM

WL Gore

9

28

Jayrow

Scania

8a

Ballyclare NCC

36

Landgate TracPlus Thermogel Global

8

Fraser

37

Scania

Booth (s)

07 3869 7000

THEATRES

Contact Number

Oliver

Email Address marketing@sasgar.com.au

Sasgar

Contact Person Sarah Brown

Panasonic Honeywell

Organisation Sasgar Fire and Rescue

SA Emergency Services

EXHIBITOR LISTING (CONT)

182

181

IVECO

RAPP

Emsina

12-14

16

17-19

Fujitsu & USDD

22

Innovation Zone

Floor plan correct at time of printing.

30

AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK afac.com.au/conference

afac.com.au/conference AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK

31

ABSTRACTS | RESEARCH FORUM

1 How do wildfires spread? Experimental research yields new insights Mark Finney PhD USDA Forest Service Missoula, Montana, United States Modern fire behaviour analyses depend on useful technological advances in data, modeling, and communication. Technology has contributed little, however, to understanding fire physics sufficiently to replace operational tools that still rely upon halfcentury-old empirical formulations. The physics of bushfires has traditionally been studied through intensive modeling that requires numerous assumptions of combustion and heat transfer necessarily adapted from established structure-fire engineering relations. But now, renewed emphasis in experimental research has caused rethinking of some of the most basic concepts in wildland fuel particle ignition and flame spread. Together these findings suggest new possibilities for advancing bushfire behaviour science.

Experiments show fine fuel particles (grasses, brush, twigs), which are very thin; cool effectively by convection in ambient air such that heating to ignition by radiation is difficult. Contrary to modeling assumptions, fine particles must await flame contact (convective heating) before igniting.

Laboratory and field experiments reveal the source of convective heating in spreading fires derives from fire-induced vorticity which forces flames downward and ahead of the combustion zone in intermittent contact with fuel particles. New laboratory techniques capture the intermittency and suggest it has predictable average frequencies familiar in studies of buoyant instabilities. Dependent only on buoyancy, these scaling relations show promise at field scales.

Instrumentation of fine fuel particle temperatures in spreading laboratory fires show temperature as flames approach. The data stress the importance of intermittent convective heating from contact with flame excursions ahead of the flame zone rather than radiation.

2 Research: the driver for mitigating future disasters Dr Alex Zelinsky Chief Defence Scientist, Defence Science and Technology Organisation Canberra, ACT In his keynote presentation the Chief Defence Scientist outlines the role of science and technology in coordinating research to address challenges in national security including emergencies in Australia and overseas. Research is the first step in developing effective strategies for disaster management. Defence scientists are being increasingly deployed to advise on disaster scenarios such as the MH-17 tragedy or the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. In turn, Defence research has resulted in increased benefits for the first responder community, giving them access to such capabilities as chemical alerts, trace gas detectors and imagery that can ‘see’ through smoke in a bushfire.

Future research is focused on developing truly trusted autonomous systems with the potential to reduce the impact of disasters while dealing with them safely and effectively.

32

3 We’ve got trouble getting around but we’re still alright: Self-identities of disability and risk and the implications for bushfire planning

5 The future of non-traditional emergency volunteering: What will it look like and how can it work?

6 The integration of informal volunteers into animal emergency management: Experiences from the 2015 South Australian bushfires

Danielle Every The Appleton Institute, CQ University Adelaide, SA

Blythe McLennan, Joshua Whittaker and John Handmer Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC RMIT University Melbourne, VIC

Melanie Taylor Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Macquarie University Penrith, NSW

The landscape of volunteering is undergoing significant change in Australia and internationally. Large-scale socioeconomic changes have recast the conditions in which people volunteer in the 21st century. Emergency managers can expect to engage with a much wider and more diverse range of volunteers than in the past. These volunteers bring new opportunities, but also risks. To harness the potential of these ‘non-traditional’ volunteers, emergency managers will need to develop more flexible approaches to volunteerism and seek new forms of partnership and collaboration with the voluntary and private sectors.

Megan McCarthy Western Sydney University Penrith, NSW

People with a physical disability are often more at risk during bushfires, and may not have effective bushfire plans. These greater risks have been attributed to poor communication, and the proposed solution is greater diversity of formats of emergency education and messaging. However, this does not explain why people with a disability may choose not to have a bushfire plan, or develop plans which require full physical functioning.

This paper suggests that lack of or limited bushfire planning reflects not a lack of information, but a reluctance to identify one’s self, or be identified as, ‘not able’, ‘useless’ or a ‘burden’.

Not identifying bushfire risk may also be a way to reject the negative implications for one’s independence and self-efficacy.

This identity explanation of bushfire plans suggests that effective communication and education to increase planning could: avoid positioning people as ‘vulnerable’; champion positive disability identities and roles in bushfires; and normalise an evaluation of physical abilities as something everyone (not just ‘disabled people’) does in preparing for bushfires.

4 Developing a targeted resilience intervention for the primary prevention of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Petra M Skeffington, Robert Kane, Clare Rees and Trevor Mazzucchelli Curtin University Perth, WA The current ‘best practice’ approach to trauma is to screen for pathology and provide treatment when required (Cloitre, 2009; Cornum et al., 2011). This reactive paradigm is seen in the wealth of information and numerous studies regarding debriefing, early intervention responses following trauma and therapeutic approaches to stress and trauma pathologies. Positive psychology literature abounds with research exploring components of resilience, comparing resilient individuals with less resilient individuals and, more recently, implementing resilience programs with children. Only in recent years have studies reflecting resilience training programs with adults appeared (Burton et al., 2009, 2010).

This study aims to explore the possibility of teaching resilience to adults in high-trauma professions in order to buffer participants against intense and prolonged stress and multiple trauma exposures. The program was tested in a longitudinal randomised control trial involving Australian fire and emergency service recruits. This presentation will outline the theory and process behind the development of this targeted intervention, including practical challenges and barriers in this field of work. Preliminary results will be discussed.

AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK afac.com.au/conference

This paper examines the opportunities and challenges posed by non-traditional volunteering in Australian emergency management. It combines research on the key types of nontraditional emergency volunteering emerging internationally with critical, illustrative studies of this volunteering in Australia.

The case studies examine the contributions and management of non-traditional volunteers, challenges for the emergency management sector to support this volunteering, and potential legal implications. Preliminary findings highlight immediate and flow-on public safety benefits that can be realised when supportive relationships are established between non-traditional volunteer groups and formal emergency management organisations.

The case studies shed light on what makes these relationships work and how potential challenges, risks and pitfalls can be negotiated or mitigated. They also reveal a number of areas where emergency management organisations need to adapt internal processes to enable engagement with a larger and more diverse base of emergency volunteers.

Greg Eustace Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC RSPCA Queensland Brisbane, QLD This research presentation will discuss the initial findings of a study being undertaken to explore the integration of informal volunteers into animal emergency management. The January 2015 Sampson Flat bushfire in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia, will be used as a case study to explore questions regarding the challenges for, and strengths and limitations of, informal volunteering in this context.

This research is being undertaken as part of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Managing Animals in Disasters project.

Twenty-four in-depth, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with participants from the following groups: • Coordinators/administrators of emergent informal volunteer groups who were disseminating information and mobilising volunteers during the bushfire to assist with animals.

• Members of established animal organisations who were involved in the response, but who don’t specialise in disaster response in their core business/activities, e.g. Animal Welfare League, RSPCA SA. • Members of the volunteer group South Australian Veterinary Emergency Management, who are veterinary health professionals with a level of emergency management training and who were responding as part of the official emergency response. Trained emergency services personnel and personnel from key government agencies (Country Fire Service, the Department of Primary Industries and Resources, the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources), including those in decision-making roles and those who encountered informal volunteers ‘on-the-ground’.

The study findings will be important in enabling an increased understanding of the role, position, motivation, skills and knowledge of emergent groups and the role of volunteers in disaster situations. It is anticipated that the findings of this research will advance dialogue in this area, enabling solutions to be identified and improvements to be made to the integration of this potential resource in emergency management.

afac.com.au/conference AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK

33

ABSTRACTS | RESEARCH FORUM (CONT)

7 Verification of soil moisture from land surface models and traditional soil dryness indices

8 How will the new satellite navigation systems help with the provision of information and warnings?

Vinod Kumar and Imtiaz Dharssi Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Bureau of Meteorology Docklands, VIC

John Handmer, Suelynn Choy and Joshua Whittaker Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Centre for Risk and Community Safety, School of Mathematical and Geospatial Sciences RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC

The McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) used in Australia has a component representing fuel availability called the Drought Factor, which in turn is partly based on soil moisture deficit, commonly calculated as either the Keetch–Byram Drought Index (KBDI) or Mount’s Soil Dryness Index (SDI). The KBDI and SDI are essentially simplified water balance models to estimate soil moisture depletion in the upper soil levels, and are driven by precipitation and maximum temperature analyses.

In this study, we compare these two old empirical models against an emerging new approach in soil moisture estimation in the form of land surface modelling. Validation of these models is carried against in situ observations of soil moisture from OzNet and CosmOz networks in Australia. The results indicate that soil moisture from land surface model employed within the Bureau of Meteorology’s operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) model produce a more accurate estimation than KBDI and SDI. The average correlations obtained over all sites are 0.7, 0.58 and 0.67 for NWP, KBDI and SDI respectively.

This study intends to be of a preliminary nature to the research that will be carried out to provide a better provision of soil dryness products with greater accuracy at a much higher spatial and temporal resolution for use in fire danger ratings.

Yuki Shinohara NTT DATA Corporation Japan Tomohiro Hatori PASCO Corporation Japan Naohiko Kohtake Graduate School of System Design and Management Keio University Japan This paper introduces the concept and benefits of using next generation Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as the Japanese Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), for the provision of emergency information and warnings. The Japanese GNSS-based warning system can be tailored to transmit context-sensitive messages according to people’s location and situation through GNSS receiver terminal embedded in mobile phones and car navigation units.

This real-time provision of emergency warnings using satellite-based technologies is not constrained by the limitations of ground-based communication technologies. This enables people to obtain necessary information anywhere (outdoors) and anytime during times of disaster. Satellite-based warning systems could also be integrated with existing warning services and be used as a complementary technology.

This paper describes a collaborative project with Japan on the potential utilisation of QZSS for emergency alerting and warnings in Australia.

34

AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK afac.com.au/conference

9 Culturally appropriate mapping tools for informing two-way fire management planning in remote indigenous north Australian communities Andrew C Edwards, Kamaljit Sangha and Cameron P Yates Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Darwin Centre for Bushfire Research Darwin, NT Jeremy Russell-Smith Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Darwin Centre for Bushfire Research North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance Darwin, NT Remote northern indigenous communities are prone to annual flood, cyclonic events, and severe fire danger periods lasting weeks that frequently result in environmentally destructive bushfires. Although effective responses to such events are typically hindered by inadequate infrastructural resources, of equal concern is the paucity of culturally appropriate ‘two-way’ planning aids that can help inform both non-indigenous and indigenous governance institutions, and build local community resilience.

Based on extensive savanna fire management research describing fire impacts on a variety of ecosystem services and values, we describe the development and testing of mapping tools to assist community-based fire management planning in two remote Arnhem Land communities.

10 Science in motion: Knowledge practices and prescribed burning in south western Victoria Timothy Neale and Jessica Weir Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Western Sydney University Sydney, NSW The Scientific Diversity, Scientific Uncertainty and Risk Mitigation Policy and Planning BNHCRC project examines three case studies in which scientific knowledges and scientific uncertainties play a significant role in the mitigation of bushfire and/or flood risk.

Through these case studies, the project examines how diverse knowledge practices—including scientific knowledge, professional experience, local knowledge, and Indigenous knowledge—and key scientific uncertainties are encountered, managed and utilised by practitioners and decision-makers involved in bushfire and/or flood risk mitigation.

This paper suggests that a better understanding of the interaction and evaluation of different knowledges and forms of uncertainty in such mitigation practices will enable industry to better articulate decisions to stakeholders, inquiries, and other audiences. Scientific uncertainties are those ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’ that emerge from the development and utilisation of scientific knowledges. They are the things we have comparatively limited knowledge about, whether we know it or not, because of limits in available data or modelling methods. These uncertainties are an irreducible component in any practice that utilises scientific knowledges, and, as such, they play a significant role in bushfire and flood risk mitigation professionals’ attempts to anticipate hazard behaviour within non-linear dynamical systems such as weather and climate. This is not to suggest these uncertainties are overwhelming, but that, as Moore et al. suggest (2005), risk mitigation professionals must ‘embrace uncertainty’ if they hope to comprehensively manage a given risk.

This paper will survey both the key findings of the project’s literature review of relevant scientific uncertainties and the results of interviews and a scenario exercise involving mitigation professionals from the project’s first case study in the Barwon Otway region of south western Victoria. Over the past decade, this region has been the site of multi-agency efforts to reduce the residual bushfire risk using ensemble forecast modelling and fuel reduction burning.

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ABSTRACTS | RESEARCH FORUM (CONT)

11 Disaster management: Building resilient systems to aid recovery

12 Risk and protective factors for bushfire resilience and recovery

Deborah Bunker, Tony Sleigh, Christian Ehnis and Linda Levine University of Sydney Darlington, NSW

Lisa Gibbs, Elizabeth Waters Karen Block, Elyse Snowdon and Greg Ireton Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne Carlton, VIC

Developments in open innovation platforms, mobile phones and portable computers have enhanced communication, collaboration and location of people, places and resources, while facilitating societal transformation and self-organising capability on an unprecedented scale. Communities have been able to ‘self organise’ like never before and have become major participants in, and facilitators of disaster recovery operations in the Haiti earthquake (2010), Christchurch earthquakes (2010/11), Japanese tsunami (2011) and the Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian floods of (2011/12). Case studies of these incidents provide numerous examples where self-organising groups of citizens supported and supplemented government efforts. While genuinely attempting to render assistance in the recovery process, these self-organising groups and the systems they have created, have sometimes been misguided, inappropriate and dangerous due to their lack of integration with coordinated government, NGO and community view of recovery activities and systems.

We examine how to best harness the principles of self-organising systems to augment traditional Common Operating Pictures of disaster recovery in order to more effectively develop an integrated approach to: situational awareness, resource utilisation and recovery outcome optimisation. This is a very important, costly and complex problem for government and one that is currently significantly under-researched. In order for this problem to be effectively tackled in the current context of social transformation, the best of command and control approaches and structures must be considered and blended with the potential that is arising from emerging self-organising systems.

This study outlines the results of a one day Resilient Disaster Systems Symposium that was held with an experienced academic, agency and NGO audience where key issues in disaster recovery and suggested areas of focus were generated. These key issues were then examined utilising the theory of evolving organisations and systems archetypes, so as to better understand guiding principles for developing effective and resilient systems solutions.

Hugh Colin Gallagher Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne Burwood, VIC Louise Harms and Connie Kellett School of Social Work, University of Melbourne Carlton, VIC Richard Bryant School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW Dean Lusher Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology Hawthorn, VIC David Forbes Australian Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, University of Melbourne East Melbourne, VIC John Richardson Australian Red Cross Carlton, VIC

Building understanding of resilience risk and protective factors helps to guide the development and delivery of disaster response and recovery services. This presentation will report on the findings of the Beyond Bushfires study on the impacts of the Black Saturday disaster experience and what made a difference to individual mental health and wellbeing afterwards.

13 Shared responsibility: Shades of grey

Beyond Bushfires is a five-year study led by University of Melbourne in partnership with a range of community, government, emergency, and service agencies. The study explores medium to long-term impacts of the Victorian 2009 bushfires on individuals and communities. The communities selected for this study had a range of bushfire experiences from low impact to high impact.

Impacts on residents such as mental health, wellbeing and social connections were examined. Over 1,000 participants completed surveys in 2012 and were followed up in 2014. A sub-sample of 35 participants completed in-depth interviews.

A university, non-government organisation and local council partnership was formed to map the Blue Mountains community in relation to vulnerable people in daily life and in times of emergency. Soon after the project launch the October 2013, fires broke out in Yellow Rock, Winmalee and Mt Victoria, directly affecting hundreds of households.

The study results show the disaster experience can have a direct and prolonged impact on mental health and wellbeing, as can subsequent major life stressors such as changed accommodation, employment, health and relationships. Age, gender and living circumstances can influence how the disaster and its aftermath are experienced. Importantly, this means that household/ family members often had different responses to their bushfire experience.

A particularly strong finding in terms of recovery was that social ties matter. Close emotional ties, social networks and involvement in local community groups and organisations all contribute to resilience and recovery. An overview of the findings will provide insights into the pattern of influences on resilience and recovery, and implications for future policy and service delivery.

Sarah Redshaw and Valerie Ingham Charles Sturt University Bathurst, NSW

The Community Connections research involved a survey sent to all ratepayers in the Blue Mountains, and interviews and focus groups with community members. Over 1100 surveys were completed and returned. Findings indicate that, in some areas, ‘shared responsibility’ actually becomes ‘shades of grey’ as vulnerable community members become confused between the ‘community engagement’ activities of the emergency services and the lack of individual assistance when disaster strikes. Vulnerable community members who lack connections to assist them in emergencies include the aged, financially disadvantaged, single-parent families, households without a car, people living alone and people with chronic illnesses.

The pressing question is: Who is responsible for appropriately identifying and assisting the vulnerable in a crisis situation?

Community organisations are recognised in the National Strategy and are seen as sharing responsibility for disaster resilience.

This sector, however, is not often invited to the table of disaster committees and bodies. In particular, community organisations could play a part in strengthening community resilience through their work with the most vulnerable members of the community.

This paper explores the Blue Mountain experience.

Colin MacDougall Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity, Flinders University Bedford Park, SA Vikki Sinnott Health and Human Services, Victorian State Government Melbourne, VIC Philippa Pattison Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Education), University of Sydney Sydney, NSW

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ABSTRACTS | RESEARCH FORUM (CONT)

14 The role of extreme value analysis to enhance defendable space for construction practice and planning in bushfire-prone environments Grahame Douglas Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Western Sydney University Penrith, NSW Yaping He and Edward C Morris Western Sydney University Penrith, NSW While bushfires are an anticipated event with each fire season, it is important that the extent of likely annual fire weather conditions and those of more extreme conditions are identified as part of the preparation of communities for those fire events. In preparing defendable space arrangements (often referred to as asset protection zones), for both existing homes and when planning for future urban expansion, the characteristics of fire weather conditions are critical. Historically, extreme value analysis has been used for floods, storms and wind, however, such analysis has not been routinely undertaken for fire weather. This may be because, historically, fire weather is a composite of differing parameters which, at their extreme, individually may not be related to bushfire. Fire danger rating and index systems generate nondimensional parameters and in Australia, this has generally focused on forest-fire danger indices or grassland-fire danger indices.

While it is difficult to ascertain individual bushfire extremes related to traditional parameters like wind speed, temperature and relative humidity, the use of the extreme value distributions are a suitable process for fire danger indices in Australia. This can then be applied to deterministic fire behaviour assessments, whether through the identification of rate of spread, flame height (or length), intensity or suppression effort.

This paper offers new insights into the use of three extreme-value assessment techniques for both MacArthur and Project Vesta equations which, when combined with fuel assessments, can be used to determine comparable defendable space for buildings under both existing and planned urban developments in NSW. Treatment options can be more effectively determined and quantified under such an approach so as to better balance resident safety as well as recognise environmental assets. For planning purposes, improved-design bushfire scenarios can be applied.

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15 Improvements and difficulties associated with the seismic assessment of infrastructure in Australia

16 Estimating floodway damage using repair cost for elements

17 A framework for an integrated model that supports multi-hazard mitigation planning

Ryan D Hoult, Helen M Goldsworthy and Elisa Lumantarna Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC The University of Melbourne Parkville, VIC

Buddhi Wahalathantri and Weena Lokuge Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC School of Civil Engineering and Surveying, University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba, QLD

Jeffery P Newman, Graeme A Riddell, Charles P Newland, Aaron C Zecchin, Holger R Maier and Graeme Dandy Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Adelaide Adelaide, SA

Australia is considered to be a region of low-to-moderate seismicity, but experiences a substantially higher level of seismic activity than other active intra-plate regions around the world. Because of the low earthquake return period that is typically used in design, coupled with the low amount of reinforcement detailing that is required by current standards, it is anticipated that many of the reinforced concrete structures that are abundant throughout the Australian building stock have very limited ductility. Moreover, it has only been in the past couple of decades that structural engineers have been required to consider the forces that are associated with a low return-period earthquake event, thus making the older building stock particularly vulnerable to seismic loading.

This paper aims to provide the latest research and modeling that can be incorporated in the seismic assessment of a structure in Australia. Two aspects are discussed that are necessary for the calculation of assessing a structure: the seismic demand and a building’s capacity. The seismic demand for any location in Australia is primarily dependent on the models used for the earthquake recurrence, attenuation and the site response. A structure’s capacity can be found using a displacement-based assessment, where the building can be modeled as an equivalent single-degree-of-freedom structure. Some of the assumptions and parameters involved in the modeling processes for seismic demand and a building’s capacity are scrutinised for their validity in places of low-to-moderate seismic regions, such as Australia. Potential vulnerabilities within the building stock of Australia, primarily associated with reinforced concrete wall and core buildings, are discussed.

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Warna Karunasena School of Civil Engineering and Surveying, University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba, QLD Sujeeva Setunge Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, RMIT University Melbourne, VIC Floodways are accepted as economic and environment-friendly alternative road infrastructure to bridges and culverts in rural road networks with low traffic volumes. They play a vital role to the economy of a country by connecting regional communities, farmlands and agricultural areas to city centres. However, floodways are subjected to a certain degree of submergence from their design aspects and hence differ from other road infrastructures. Nevertheless, natural hazards can cause damage to floodways as evident from the 2011 and 2013 Queensland flood events. Fifty-eight per cent of floodway structures in the Lockyer Valley Regional Council area in Queensland were damaged during the 2013 flood, leading to operational failures in rural road networks and the isolation of regional communities.

Damage assessment during the post-disaster event is a difficult but important step to enhance the resilience of regional communities.

A lack of proper methodology to estimate the extent of damage can cause huge delays to repair/reconstruction activities and also can lead to errors in making correct decisions and prioritising the repair/reconstruction works. Such delays can be detrimental to the resilience of the regional communities. This paper develops a quantitative method to estimate the extent of the damage using a damage index method. Failures in upstream, downstream and road way zones and their extent of damage are examined and evaluated across a number of floodways in the Lockyer Valley Regional Council area to develop a generalised method. The analysis is performed based on the cost estimations at elementary level for the floodways damaged in the 2013 flood event. This method will quickly and accurately estimate the extent of the damage to enable correct decisions to be made and prioritised regarding repair/ reconstruction works. This approach, therefore, enhances the resilience of regional communities who are served by floodways.

Hedwig van Delden School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Adelaide Adelaide, SA Research Institute for Knowledge Systems, Maastricht The Netherlands Roel Vanhout Research Institute for Knowledge Systems, Maastricht The Netherlands Edward Pikusa South Australian Fire and Emergency Services Commission, Adelaide, SA Hazard mitigation planning is multi-faceted. First, plans should be holistic, considering a number of community goals in addition to risk management. Second, plans should guide development over the long term, and need to consider how the frequency, magnitude and consequences of hazards change over time. To assess future changes, a large number of environmental and anthropogenic factors that affect hazard risk need to be estimated, yet strong uncertainty exists in estimating these factors. Third, implemented plans have a wide social, environmental and economic impact; impacts across these systems need to be assessed. Finally, resources for mitigation are limited; benefits of mitigation need to be clear to make a business case to decision makers and the public.

Due to these facets, decision-support systems are invaluable when planning mitigation.

This paper presents an integrated model for mitigation planning.

To assess the impact of mitigation options across the wider social, economic and environmental systems, the proposed decision support system (DSS) integrates flood, bushfire, earthquake, and coastal-surge risk models with social, natural and built environment models. The integrated model is used to estimate the values of multiple decision criteria, to enable holistic planning.

Criteria estimated by the DSS include hazard, vulnerability, risk, cost-benefit analysis and other social and environmental variables.

To understand how these criteria change over the long term, models of climate, demographics and economic change are used.

To enable the spatial assessment of the criteria a land-use model is used, which also allows the consideration of spatial planning and land-management mitigation options, in addition to structural and educational measures. Finally, the integrated model is linked with optimisation, which is designed to screen through planning options, and hence discover innovative sets of policy options.

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ABSTRACTS | RESEARCH FORUM (CONT)

18 Bringing hazard and economic modellers together: A spatial platform for damage and loss visualisation

19 Risk ownership and natural disasters: Across systems and across values

20 Improved assessment of grassland fuels in multiple jurisdictions across Australia

21 A 40-year mesoscale gridded fire weather climatology for Victoria

Abbas Rajabifard, Mehmet Ulubasoglu, Katie E Potts, Yiqun Chen and Mohsen Kalantari Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC The University of Melbourne Parkville, VIC

Roger N Jones, Celeste K Young and John Symons Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Victoria University Melbourne, VIC

Danielle Wright, David Nichols, Alen Slijepcevic, Susan Kidnie, Alex Chen and Rachel Bessell Country Fire Authority Burwood East, VIC

Sarah Harris and Graham Mills Monash University Clayton, VIC

This paper examines (1) the concept of risk ownership for natural hazard risk management; (2) what happens to risk ownership when natural hazard impacts, responses and responsibilities cross domains; and (3) existing arrangements in Australia that pertain to these concepts. These contribute to the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC project Mapping and Understanding Bushfire and Natural Hazard Vulnerability and Risks at the Institutional Scale.

Domains are geographic, institutional or a combination of both.

Risk ownership stems from two traditions: capitalism, where it links ownership of resources and the possibility of loss with control of those resources, and risk management, where a risk owner is a person or entity with the accountability and authority to manage a risk.

In Australia, the degree of grassland curing (senescence) is an essential component in fire-behaviour models and in Grassland Fire Danger Index (GFDI) calculations. Methodologies used to assess grassland curing and fire behaviour vary between states and territories. Such variation causes inconsistent GFDI values across the continent, and inhibits the continuity of GFDI values at state/ territory borders. Additionally, inaccurate assessments of curing provide imprecise information for modelling fire behaviour and determining fire danger ratings.

Muhammad Habibur Rahman and Prasad Bhattacharya Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Deakin University Melbourne, VIC Rapid economic growth, along with complex urban planning and development processes, tend to accelerate economic vulnerabilities – which makes disaster risk reduction (DRR) interventions more important than ever. In this context, knowing the potential damage and losses due to natural disasters is indispensable to designing pre-disaster mitigation and postdisaster recovery activities. In practice, civil engineers and hazard modellers assess the potential damage of physical assets using a spatial platform. Economists are inclined to estimate losses in economic flows due to natural disasters mainly at state or national levels using econometric methodologies.

Such divergence in approaches make the DRR field very challenging for economic applications when the expectation is to provide a spatially enabled, decision-support tool that can visualise not only damage to physical assets but also map the overall economic effects of natural disasters. This paper bridges the gap between hazard and economic modellers by devising a spatial platform that can provide inputs to an economic model as well as display the outputs of it on maps. Precisely, this paper contributes to providing a method that unleashes opportunity for hazard and economic scientists to work together to enable better prediction about potential effects of natural disasters.

Another important contribution of this paper is that it maps the overall effects of natural disasters by economic sectors. It has an utmost importance, especially to the economic policymakers in that they can prioritise budget allocation across the economic sectors as well as geographical areas in terms of their relative disaster risks. Moreover, the proposed method in this paper can support identifying appropriate public policy and development programs to avoid undesirable effects in economic performance and public wellbeing due to catastrophic events.

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Risks that cross domains are by definition systemic, so ownership also needs to be treated systemically. The capitalistic aspect addresses the notion of resource ownership, the presence of risk and the act of taking responsibility for those risks. This expands to regulatory, legal, social and moral forms of ownership. The risk aspect nominates accountability and authority for risk management, which are quite different roles. We prefer to substitute responsibility for authority because it is better suited to both formal and informal roles. Both accountability and responsibility are needed to manage systemic risk that concern both tangible (economic) and intangible (social and environmental) values.

The project applies two linked frameworks: Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development Framework and the more conventional risk framework. The project uses them to assess ownership in three phases: (1) ownership of values at risk in the pre-risk or normal phase; (2) ownership of mitigating severe risks associated with events likely to cross domains resulting in disasters and allocation between normal and exceptional; (3) ownership in the post-event phase of recovery from damage and loss. Initial examples of these in the Australian context will be described.

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In Victoria, from 2010 to 2014, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) improved and automated methods to accurately assess grassland curing. A growing network of 200+ observers was established and supported by online training to produce accurate groundbased curing observations. A new satellite-based model and an automated online system were developed and deployed. The system combines satellite and ground-based data to produce weekly curing maps used operationally during the fire season.

Finally, experimental grassland burns were conducted to improve the understanding of the curing function for grassland fire behaviour models.

Since 2014, CFA has collaborated with fire agencies from multiple jurisdictions, supported by the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department National Emergency Management Projects, to improve methodologies of grassland fuel assessment across Australia. As a trial to improve GFDI calculations, grassland-curing datasets have been produced for multiple states and territories, and will be accommodated with a pilot trial of the online system.

In collaboration with CSIRO, further experimental burns will be conducted to improve assessments of fire behaviour at different levels of curing and fuel load.

Timothy Brown, Domagoj Podnarb, Hauss Reinbold and Matt Fearon Desert Research Institute Reno, Nevada, United States A homogeneous, 40-year (1972-2012), hourly four-kilometre gridded climate dataset for Victoria has been generated using a combination of mesoscale modelling, global re-analysis data, surface observations, and historically observed rainfall analyses.

The primary purposes of this dataset are to optimise planned burning and land-management strategies, and scenario planning for major fire events.

Outputs include fire weather and fire danger variables. The output data are created using the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. Error correction techniques are applied to minimise any model biases. Outputs provide an almost limitless opportunity for hitherto unavailable analyses – fields of percentiles of forest fire danger index (FDDI) values, analysis of periods exceeding thresholds at any location, inter-annual and regional variations of fire season characteristics, analysis of prescribed burning windows, of atmospheric dispersion climates, and various atmospheric stability measures that might affect fire behaviour, and to assess climatologies of more esoteric mesoscale weather events, such as mountain waves and wind change structures, that may affect fire behaviour.

Finally, the hourly mesoscale wind fields provide a previously unavailable long-period homogeneous data set with which to drive fire-spread models such as Phoenix. This presentation describes the generation of the dataset, shows examples of output, and highlights use and relevance for fire management.

The combined efforts of the project will improve the accuracy and continuity of GFDI calculations across Australia, and will result in more accurate and spatially representative grass fuel information being used in fire behaviour prediction and fire danger indices.

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ABSTRACTS | RESEARCH FORUM (CONT)

22 Understanding present and future bushfire hazard reduction burn windows in NSW

23 A bushfire evacuation planning service utilising multiple simulation systems

24 Mapping it out: A user-centred design framework for WebGIS public warnings

25 SYMPOSIUM: Child-centred disaster risk reduction: what do we know, what do major stakeholders want?

Hamish Clarke Climate and Atmospheric Science, NSW Office of Environment & Heritage Parramatta, NSW Climate Change Research Centre and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Systems Science, University of NSW Sydney, NSW

Kent Steer, Ermyas Abebe, Anton Beloglazov and Mahathir Almashor IBM Research Carlton South, VIC

Yinghui Cao and Bryan Boruff School of Earth and Environment, the University of Western Australia Crawley, WA

Kevin R Ronan School of Human, Health and Social Sciences, CQ University Rockhampton, QLD

In recent years there have been important developments in simulation software for emergency management. Example simulation applications include: weather, traffic, fire, flood and evacuee behaviour. Alone, each of these simulation components can be used for just a portion of an emergency scenario. However, to evaluate the cumulative consequences of an event requires the coupling of components. In this presentation we cover recent work to chain simulation components together to enable endto-end scenario simulation. The result is a powerful exploratory system that can help emergency planners and at-risk communities understand their situation and investigate possible actions that could reduce their risk.

Ilona McNeill Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, the University of Melbourne Melbourne, VIC

Belinda Kenny Fire and Incident Management Section, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service Parramatta, NSW The NSW Government is currently committed to treating an average of 135,000 hectares of national park estate each year in hazard reduction burns, as part of its overall bushfire risk management. This strategy assumes the regular occurrence of periods, or windows, during which weather is favourable for conducting the burns. However, we do not fully understand the typical timing and frequency of these hazard reduction burn windows across the NSW landscape. Without this knowledge, it is also difficult to predict the impact of climate change upon burn windows.

This project takes a multi-pronged approach to the problem of developing a ‘climatology’ of present and future hazard reduction burn windows. First, we analyse the frequency of various meteorological thresholds currently used to guide burn planning.

Secondly, we create a climatology for the extended burn seasons of autumn (March to June) and spring (July to October), during which the majority of hazard reduction burns take place. Finally, we examine historical records of hazard reduction burns in order to determine the weather conditions during which they took place.

These separate measures of hazard reduction burn windows are then applied to output from a 12-member, regional climate model ensemble to project changes in these windows out to 2030 and 2070.

While connecting these components is one important step, accessibility is another. To this end, we have developed a webbased interface to this system that enables non-research members of the emergency management organisations to initiate simulation workflows and investigate the results. This approach also supports collaborative use cases and has applications in community engagement – to raise awareness and catalyse discussion around community resilience. The scenario we present has a focus on bushfire evacuation planning, which incorporates fire, behaviour and traffic simulation.

We have also developed a number of new analytical measures for evaluating the risk level for a scenario that utilise the detail available through cellular and agent-based simulators. These measures provide a more accurate prediction of the impact of a scenario that allows for greater precision in risk-mitigation actions.

This is a joint project by the Science Division of the Office of Environment and Heritage and the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. By linking science with practice, we aim to conduct relevant research that will underpin good practice in hazard reduction burns management.

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Mapping applications based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been increasingly valued by the hazard management community for their salient capabilities to process, analyse and visualise large volumes of spatial hazard and risk information.

However, similar applications for the delivery of risk information to the public, especially in the face of an imminent disaster, are not prevalent and, when used, are often rudimentary in nature. Where attempts to integrate and visualise hazard/risk information through static maps or interactive web-mapping tools have been made, they have lacked a systematic consideration and evaluation of the tools’ effectiveness in satisfying users’ needs and achieving the intended communication goals.

This paper describes a user-centred framework utilised for designing a WebGIS-based bushfire early warning tool. WebGIS technology is employed to integrate the variety of spatial information and support map-based visualisation, and to allow for user interactions such as map manipulation and data selection.

Based on a conceptualised bushfire-mapping tool, the questions concerning the design of the application are twofold: 1) What information should be communicated? And 2) how can maps be designed to effectively present the information? To address these questions, a range of hazard/risk information elements and associated cartographic representations were appraised for their effectiveness in respect to being understood, facilitating risk perception, and promoting risk-reducing behaviours by the end-users (i.e. the public). A two-phase assessment approach was conducted, involving an online survey to discern the most effective representation approach, and individual interviews to explore the effectiveness of each information element, presented using the user-identified effective means (e.g. image or text), for attaining the goals of public warnings. In addition to providing a usercentred knowledge base for developing a bushfire warning tool, the framework presented herein provides a general guide to usercentred design of map-mediated early warning for other hazards as well.

Briony Towers RMIT University Northcote, VIC Avianto Amri Macquarie University Brunswick, VIC Barb Kelly University of Southern Queensland Darling Heights, QLD Disaster risk reduction (DRR) research done through the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC is intended to have a focus on utilisation, translation and tightening the policy-practice-research nexus.

Two important links within this nexus relate to a fundamental proposition: does the subject under empirical scrutiny have sufficient data support to be translated in both practice and policy sectors. In the case of our program of research in child-centred (CC) DRR, research has made some bona fide strides in the past 15 years producing knowledge that supports key questions linked to this fundamental proposition. A first question is “are CC-DRR initiatives effective in reducing risk and increasing resilience for children, families, communities?” Another key question is “given evidence supporting CC-DRR initiatives program content/delivery and important DRR outcomes, are these initiatives then able to be translated into practice and policy contexts, including scaled and sustainable implementation that prove effective in producing important, cost-effective DRR outcomes in communities?”

Against this backdrop, the symposium will present findings of Year 1 of our program of research. This includes a major scoping and review exercise and pilot research. The scoping and review exercise addressed theory as well as separate inquiries into policy, practice and research in CC-DRR, including links to more general DRR tenets in Australia and the UN and international context.

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ABSTRACTS | RESEARCH FORUM (CONT)

26 Improved modelling of extreme storm surges and waves along the Australian coast

27 Combining hydrologic and hydraulic models for real-time flood forecasting

Ivica Janekovic, Yasha Hetzel and Chari Pattiaratchi Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC University of Western Australia Crawley, WA

Yuan Li, Stefania Grimaldi, Valentijn Pauwels, Jeff Walker and Ashley Wright Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Monash University Clayton, VIC

More than 85% of Australians live near the coast, resulting in a high density of coastal infrastructure and population exposed to the destructive effects of extreme sea levels caused by storms. Recent technological advances allow for realistic highresolution numerical models capable of analysing dynamics to better understand how storms will impact the coastline and even predict such events. These advanced models provide coastal planners and emergency managers with invaluable tools, such as inundation maps, to better prepare for and deal with disaster related to surges in sea level. One of the most destructive storms in Western Australia was Cyclone Alby in 1978, which caused an estimated $39 million dollars’ damage and killed five people. Large waves and extreme surges caused coastal erosion and inundation across the south west of the state.

Using an advanced, high-resolution (in the coastal zone ~100 metres) 3D finite element model, coupled with a state-of-the art wave model, we resolved the dynamical response of the sea surface to Cyclone Alby and examined the inundation effects of the storm. Significant waves in the storm region were around 10 metres, which agreed with ship observations. The two-way, coupled modelling approach better represented wind stress over the sea, taking into account wave surface roughness and dynamics.

In the coastal regions, including waves in the model gave estimates of wave-induced setup along the coast and showed a closer fit with observed water levels compared with other commonly applied storm surge models. The predicted onset, magnitude, and duration of the surge events were similar to reported values. The surge from Alby reached up to 1.6 metres in Busselton, with approximately 25% of the height resulting from wave effects included in the model.

Floods account for approximately 40-50% of all disasters and disaster-related deaths worldwide. Although improvements in mitigation and preparedness have reduced flood-related mortality, in the last decade of the 20th century, floods still caused an estimated 100,000 deaths and affected almost 1.4 billion people worldwide. In Australia, floods are the most common natural disasters and cause the most loss of lives.

Coupled hydrologic-hydraulic models have been widely used for the modelling of design flood events in order to reduce monetary damage and increase preparedness; nevertheless an accurate and reliable flood forecast in real time is vital for giving warnings and for emergency response to reduce flood-related mortality.

In this study, a continuous hydrologic model was combined with an event-based hydraulic model to build an integrated forecasting system. In particular, the conceptual hydrologic model GRKAL was adopted to continuously model streamflow into the river system. The forecasted hydrographs were then used as inputs for the hydraulic model, LISFLOOD. The latter solves the inertial approximation of the shallow water equations to assess the extent, depth, and velocity of the flood wave in each point of the tail valley.

In order to test this coupled hydrologic-hydraulic model, forecasting experiments have been completed in a ‘hindcasting’ scenario, using historical meteorological records in two Australian catchments. The results indicated reasonable accuracy. In the next step the potential of assimilating remote sensing data and ground measurements to constrain the coupled model will be tested for achieving improved real time predictions of the spatial and temporal development of floods. The final aim of the coupled model is the provision of accurate real-time predictions of the extent, depth, and velocity of the flood wave for each point of the catchment. This information will benefit the emergency response teams.

28 Linking fire dynamics to pyroCb development

29 Large-eddy simulations of pyro-convection and its sensitivity to environmental conditions

Rick McRae ACT Emergency Services Authority Canberra, ACT

Will Thurston, Kevin J Tory, Robert JB Fawcett and Jeffery D Kepert Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC The Bureau of Meteorology Melbourne, VIC

Jason Sharples University of New South Wales Canberra, ACT A new study has shown how local dynamic fire behaviour can create violent pyro-convection. On 22 November 2006, there were a number of bushfires burning in the Sydney basin. Two of these, in the Grose Valley and near Mt Coricudgy in Wollemi National Park, developed sets of blow-up fire events, which made the fires develop violent pyro-convection. The events were observed by radar, satellites and fire service linescans. Two peer-reviewed science papers have recently been published on the events of that day.

The first used the fact that this was the closest that NASA’s A-Train satellite flotilla had come to passing directly over a pyrocumulonimbus cloud (pyroCb) (above the Wollemi Fire). The unique datasets collected have expanded our knowledge of these dangerous events, and how they can impact on upper layers of the atmosphere. This is an illuminating case study of what can be learnt about a fire by a global scientific collaboration that includes meteorologists, atmospheric physicists and bushfire scientists.

The second paper explored in detail how atypical fire dynamics produced pulses of convective activity. For the first time, we showed exactly what is needed on the fire ground for explosive fire escalation to occur. We identified the effects of a precedent foehn wind event in allowing early drying of fuels, and of the vorticitydriven lateral spread that result from fire channeling.

This case study also shows that satellite and radar data contain much more information about fire dynamics than most users realise. In total this work shows for the first time how all parts of a violent pyro-convective event link together. This can improve our skill in anticipating future events.

Intense heating of air in the vicinity of a bushfire leads to deep ascent. If this ascent is deep enough to lift air above the lifting condensation level, cumulus or cumulonimbus clouds form in a process known as pyro-convection. There is abundant anecdotal evidence to suggest that pyro-convection may have a significant impact on fire behaviour by (i) amplifying burn and spread rates; (ii) enhancing spotting through plume intensification; and (iii) igniting new fires via pyrocumulonimbus lightning. Pyro-convection is also responsible for the transport of smoke and other aerosol into the stratosphere. Therefore, knowledge of the processes that lead to the generation of pyro-convection is an important component of being able to understand and predict fire behaviour, as well as the potential climatic influences of large fires.

Here we present idealised simulations of bushfire plumes using a cloud-resolving model, the UK Met Office Large-Eddy Model (LEM). The model is initialised with idealised temperature and moisture profiles representative of that associated with high fire danger conditions. A bushfire plume is then generated by imposing a localised heat flux at the model surface. We explore the conditions under which the bushfire plume leads to pyroconvection and the sensitivity of that pyro-convection to variations in the environmental conditions and the heat and moisture flux.

The implications of the observed changes in the pyro-convection are discussed in terms of their impact on fire behaviour, primarily through the potential to affect near-surface conditions in the vicinity of the fire and spotting potential via plume intensification.

30 Living with bushfires: From a personal to a global perspective Paul Willis RiAus Adelaide, SA I have only recently moved into to a high-risk fire prone area and I’m well aware of what I stand to lose should a major bushfire burn through my neighbourhood. So why did I move there and what can I do to mitigate the risks? And what about my community? Don’t we all have a part to play in reducing the risks of losing everything?

And how broadly should those mitigation measures extend? If preventative measures are essential in mitigating risk, shouldn’t that extend to global questions of climate change and population increase? Should we contain our mitigation efforts to more local factors or do we have to look at the bigger, global picture for causes that may seem remote but have a direct consequence of the bushfire risk to my home in the Adelaide Hills? How will buying a hybrid car be an effective action in reducing the bushfire risk at home?

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CONFERENCE DAY ONE

31 A new framework for Disaster Risk Reduction

32 Insuring resilience: How we need some Aussie rules to handle global natural hazard risk

Feng Min Kan United Nations Asia Pacific The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 was adopted at the Third UN World Conference in Sendai, Japan, on March 18, 2015. It is the outcome of stakeholder consultations initiated in March 2012 and inter-governmental negotiations from July 2014 to March 2015, supported by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction at the request of the UN General Assembly.

The Sendai Framework is the successor instrument to the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters.

The Sendai Framework is built on elements which ensure continuity with the work done by States and other stakeholders under the HFA, and introduces a number of innovations as called for during the consultations and negotiations. Many commentators have identified the most significant shifts as a strong emphasis on disaster risk management as opposed to disaster management, the definition of seven global targets, the reduction of disaster risk as an expected outcome, a goal focused on preventing new risk, reducing existing risk and strengthening resilience, as well as a set of guiding principles, including primary responsibility of states to prevent and reduce disaster risk, all-ofsociety and all-of-State institutions engagement.

ECU‘S MASTER OF DISASTER AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE ECU’s Master of Disaster and Emergency Response course is designed to provide the emergency services practitioner with a broad understanding of the challenges associated with coordinating the scene of a major incident or disaster and providing leadership and support to those involved. The course develops the advanced skills needed to meet the requirements of employment in a disaster and emergency response role. Graduates can use their disaster and emergency response qualification in a range of multidisciplinary settings, both nationally and internationally, including emergency response agencies and non-governmental organisations.

Entry is open to those with a relevant Bachelor degree or equivalent prior learning with at least five years professional experience. What’s more, the course available online and part-time so that study can fit around your life.

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In addition, the scope of disaster risk reduction has been broadened significantly to focus on both natural and manmade hazards and related environmental, technological and biological hazards and risks. Health resilience is strongly promoted throughout.

The Sendai Framework also articulates the following: the need for improved understanding of disaster risk in all its dimensions of exposure, vulnerability and hazard characteristics; the strengthening of disaster risk governance, including national platforms; accountability for disaster risk management; preparedness to “Build Back Better”; recognition of stakeholders and their roles; mobilisation of risk-sensitive investment to avoid the creation of new risk; resilience of health infrastructure, cultural heritage and work-places; strengthening of international cooperation and global partnership, and risk-informed donor policies and programs, including financial support and loans from international financial institutions.

Countries and stakeholders in Asia Pacific are jointly developing a regional roadmap for Sendai Framework implementation, to be adopted at the Asian Ministerial Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction in New Delhi, India in 2016. This is complemented by reviews of country disaster risk management status as the basis to develop national strategies and action plans and the baseline for future monitoring of the Sendai Framework.

Rowan Douglas Chief Executive Officer, Capital Science & Policy Practice Willis Group London, United Kingdom Populations across the developed and emerging world face the challenge of managing growing risk from climate driven and wider natural hazards while maintaining economic growth and development. With her unique physical and human geography, Australia has the privilege and burden of being amongst the pioneers in this journey: where she leads many of us will follow.

To address this challenge requires a new relationship between science, capital and public policy to ensure that we understand, integrate and manage risk through the very core of our corporate, civic and personal actions and investments. We are witnessing new alignments between finance, science and regulation to make this practical and tractable. This is happening across the world but, with its institutions and capabilities, Australia has the opportunity and the necessity to create the new rules of the game. In future, we may all be playing by Aussie rules.

33 Australian emergency management: Experiences, lessons and changes from responses over the last 20 years Bill Griggs AM Royal Adelaide Hospital Adelaide, SA Since the early 1980s, Associate Professor Griggs has been involved directly or peripherally in the medical response to a number of mass casualty events/disasters. All of these have led to ‘lessons learnt’ and, more importantly, lessons subsequently applied.

The National Crime Authority (NCA) bombing in 1994 was an unexpected early brush with terrorism. A circus stand collapse in Cleve, in rural SA, in 1996 initially produced the challenge of dealing with ‘200 casualties’ in a remote location. The first Bali bombings in 2002 exposed major gaps in our national plans, requiring ad hoc responses. These first bombings also indirectly resulted in the creation of the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre in Darwin, which has developed a leadership role in training, standards, and response internationally. By the second Bali bombing in 2005, the lessons learnt documented from the earlier bombing largely served as a template for the response.

The magnitude of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 created a new level and set of challenges and produced another set of learning’s.

In 2009, some of these lessons were applied in the Australian support to another tsunami, which struck Samoa. In the meantime, various international organisations, including the World Health Organisation, the United Nations, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, have developed international standards and systems to improve coordination between governments and NGOs. In particular the cluster system has proved vital. This integration was evident in the recent response to Vanuatu following Tropical Cyclone Pam. However, a new issue that is just appearing is a possible loss of flexibility as plans become more and more complex.

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CONFERENCE DAY ONE (CONT)

34 Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Africa and the world – 12 months on Lyn Gilbert University of Sydney Westmead, NSW By the time the extent of the first Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa was recognised, and a coordinated response initiated in August 2014, there had been over 3000 cases and 1500 deaths in three countries. Although the outbreak began in Guinea in December 2013, it was not recognised as EVD until March 2014. In June, Médecins Sans Frontières declared it “out of control”, but there was little international response until August when the WHO acknowledged a “public health emergency of international concern” after two infected aid workers were evacuated from West Africa to the USA. In September, the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) was established – the first for a health emergency.

At last a coordinated plan was implemented to control the outbreak, already by far the largest ever. The previous largest, since EVD was first recognised in Central Africa in 1976 and involved 400 cases. Isolation facilities and diagnostic laboratories were established and more international personnel arrived to supplement the grossly inadequate health infrastructure in the three affected countries. By April 2015, there had been more than 20,000 cases and 10,000 deaths, but the outbreak had apparently ended in Liberia and slowed in Sierra Leone. Cases were still occurring, albeit at a relatively low level, in Guinea. Meanwhile, western countries have hastily established emergency procedures for identification, management and prevention of EVD cases and there has been little transmission from, and a relatively low mortality among, the small number of cases managed in nonAfrican countries.

35 Towards inclusion and diversity in urban fire services

36 Bring your lipstick

Margaret Allison Margaret Allison Consulting, Brisbane, QLD

Ariana Henderson and Sandra Robinson Parks Victoria Melbourne, VIC

The inclusion of women into urban fire services has been slow, and they continue to be under represented. The literature suggests that both the strong cultural traditions of urban fire services and the lack of effective recruitment and retention strategies can limit women joining and remaining in fire services. Although there is a relatively low level of formal complaints, it is clear that many women firefighters have been subjected to behaviour that is unacceptable in a contemporary workplace.

Have you been part of an Incident Management Team (IMT) where women outnumbered men? What roles do women perform in your IMT? How many female incident controllers are in your emergency service organisation? Have you seen a fire crew that was majority female? Were any of them wearing lipstick? What would you think of them if they were?

An independent review of the handling of a bullying and sexual harassment complaint in Queensland in 2014 identified some broader cultural and organisational matters underpinning the specific complaint. The report made a number of recommendations that need to be addressed so that Queensland Fire and Emergency Services can be as diverse as the community it serves.

These recommendations include: • Improved management of harassment and bullying allegations • A review of entry requirements and initial academy training • Greater focus on ethical matters, including an explicit focus on acceptable workplace conduct • Changes to assignment, transfer and rostering procedures.

This presentation will outline some of the findings from the Queensland review that may be relevant to other jurisdictions seeking to improve the participation of women, and the establishment of fairer and more inclusive workplaces.

37 Investigation of damage: Brisbane 27 November 2014 severe storm event

You don’t have to look hard within the emergency services sector to see a disparity in the representation of men and women, particularly in leadership roles. What are the blockers to women becoming leaders in emergency management? Is it a generational hangover from a previous era? Are the barriers within women, themselves? Some barriers experienced include working conditions and family commitments; a perceived lack of physical and mental ability to do the job; an ingrained culture and subconscious bias.

Research shows that women tend toward masculine behaviours when working in a male dominated workforce. We are hardwired to adjust our behaviours to fit into communities. The perception of needing to be “one of the boys” can prevent girls from entering or remaining in the emergency sector long enough to become leaders.

As we move into new directions in emergency management we need to support our people and challenge our current culture to ensure that the next generation of leaders has representation of women on par with men. How do we really encourage diversity in the workforce and empower women to be authentic, be themselves and still fit in a male dominated culture? This presentation will discuss how we remove barriers to empower women to become quality leaders. Let’s change the culture now so that in 2025 we have an emergency management culture where women, even those who like to wear lipstick, can be operational leaders in the emergency services sector.

Korah Parackal, David Henderson, John Ginger and Daniel Smith Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Cyclone Testing Station, James Cook University Townsville, QLD Matthew Mason Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD Between 2pm-6pm on the 27 November 2014 severe thunderstorm activity was observed in the south-east Queensland region. Two adjoining storm cells moving in a northerly direction subjected Brisbane and neighbouring suburbs to severe hail, damaging winds and localised flooding. A maximum gust wind speed of 141 km/h was measured at Archerfield Airport during this event. However, from wind field analyses and field observations, speeds were estimated to be approximately 40 to 80 km/h in other affected suburbs. Severe hail accompanied the storm (40 millimetres diameter typical), with hail damage being widespread.

Street and house surveys were conducted between 28 November and 5 December to assess structural damage and to compare overall impacts of the storm to what was reported by journalists and social media. An analysis of damage severity in relation to construction materials was then performed, allowing patterns of housing stock vulnerabilities to be examined.

Hail damage to windows and subsequent water ingress was particularly high, especially for older housing, with older window glass performing poorly against the wind-driven hail compared to newer window glass. Another contributing factor was most likely the significant horizontal component in the trajectory of the hail caused by the strong winds.

Although winds were lower than design level, some cases of severe roof failures did occur. On several occasions, these failures were due to: (i) building age with rot in timber roof members and/or corrosion of connections or (ii) installation of new roof cladding without upgrading the batten to rafter or rafter to wall tie down connections to contemporary building standards. Roof structure damage was typically associated with a breach in the windward wall allowing a large increase in internal pressure and adding to the external suction loads on the roof.

Cyclone Testing Station Technical Report 60: Investigation of Damage: Brisbane 27 November 2014 Severe Storm Event

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CONFERENCE DAY ONE (CONT)

38 Tropical Cyclone Lam

39 Tropical Cyclone Marcia

Ben Millington NSW Rural Fire Service Granville, NSW

Brian Cox Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Brisbane, QLD

The NSW Rural Fire Service (NSWRFS) purchased a substantial ‘Base Camp’ cache a number of years ago which is typically used to accommodate and allow firefighters to remain self-sufficient in remote areas. The equipment is housed and maintained at the State Mitigation Support Services warehouse in western Sydney. This facility was used to accommodate residents affected by flooding in south-west New South Wales in March 2012. This was the first time the cache was used as a community evacuation centre.

Tropical Cyclone Marcia, originally predicted as a Category 1 system, rapidly escalated to a Category 5, taking Queensland residents by surprise. At Tropical Cyclone Marcia’s peak it sustained winds at 205 km/h, and featured a very well-defined 35 kilometre eye. This presented challenges for the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) to both prepare and respond to this rare and dangerous event. QFES deployed swift water rescue crews, State Emergency Service (SES) teams and support personnel to local government in order to assist with storm preparations and response.

In February 2015, Tropical Cyclone Lam formed in the Coral Sea and moved into the Gulf of Carpentaria where it strengthened to a Category 4 system on the 19 February. This system was the strongest since Tropical Cyclone Monica in 2006. It made landfall in the Northern Territory between Elcho Island and Millingimbi, approximately 300 kilometres east of Darwin. The cyclone damaged infrastructure and destroyed many homes across the region in its path.

Having sought advice from Emergency Management Australia, the Northern Territory Government formally requested the NSWRFS to provide temporary emergency accommodation for up to 300 residents on Elcho Island. Following assessment and transportation of the equipment, the facility was established by the NSWRFS with the assistance of the Northern Territory Fire & Rescue Service. The facility remained fully operational for three and a half months until permanent housing arrangements were made.

This presentation will discuss the planning phase, logistical challenges experienced and the community engagement process during establishment of the facility.

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Making landfall early on a Friday morning north of Yeppoon, locals quickly headed for shelter where they could. Those without an appropriate home to seek refuge in turned towards the recently constructed cyclone shelters, With the Yeppoon Cyclone Shelter operating for the first time under intense conditions. More than 800 people bunkered down in the shelter, within the grounds of the Yeppoon State High School. The shelter is the most southerly located cyclone shelter in Queensland.

Having supported the establishment, training and coordination of the Cyclone Shelter program, QFES were keen to identify lessons to improve the preparedness and operations of all cyclone shelters across Queensland.

This presentation will briefly discuss the rapid onset of Tropical Cyclone Marcia, and focus on the development of the Cyclone Shelter program capability and its operational challenges during Tropical Cyclone Marcia.

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40 Docklands high-rise apartment fire: Managing community consequence case study

41 2014 G20 Leaders’ Summit Brisbane and Finance Ministers’ Meeting Cairns: Queensland Fire and Emergency Services challenges and lessons learnt

David Youssef Metropolitan Fire Brigade, East Melbourne, VIC At 2.45am on 24 November 2014, the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) crews responded to a 000 call for a structure fire in La Trobe St, Docklands, in Melbourne. A total of 19 appliances and more than 70 firefighters battled the blaze, which started on a second floor balcony and extended up the external face of building to the 20th story. An aerial appliance was utilised to extinguish the external fire while firefighters conducted a floor by floor search in heavily smokelogged conditions, checking for occupants and internal fire spread.

MFB’s role was not limited to firefighting. MFB command staff led the Emergency Management Team (comprising Victoria Police, State Emergency Service, Ambulance Victoria, Red Cross, Department of Health and local council) and effectively managed the complex incident, including the evacuation of more than 400 residents.

To assist in the transition to recovery, firefighters facilitated access to apartments for residents, one floor at a time to collect essential belongings. The impact on the resident community was significant, with all residents requiring short-term emergency accommodation and some requiring longer-term alternative accommodation.

Residents were relocated to Etihad Stadium and provided with food and shelter.

This is an important reminder of the critical role that emergency management agencies play in the community. We have an obligation to ensure those affected are provided with the best possible care and support. In this case, all involved did an excellent job working in partnership to ensure that the impact on residents was minimised and the transition to recovery was well coordinated.

Jeff King Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Brisbane, QLD In 2013, the Prime Minister announced that Brisbane would host the 2014 G20 Leaders’ Summit in November and Cairns would host the Finance Ministers’ Meeting in September 2014. With an agenda of growth and resilience, the Leaders’ Summit is the most important event in the G20 calendar. Members from 19 countries plus the European Union attended in addition to countries invited by the Australian Government. The G20 meetings are considered to be the largest security and safety event that Queensland/ Australia has undertaken. My aim for this presentation is to discuss the challenges and lessons learnt through inter-operability at federal, state and local government levels, including inter-agency operability.

I will discuss both the challenges faced during the planning phase and lessons learnt by the organisation in our ability to provide a ‘business as usual’ response capability whilst undertaking the establishment of a dedicated workforce to manage and respond to: (i) any public safety hazard that may have arisen within the G20 meeting and accommodation precincts, (ii) the constantly changing direction by Commonwealth and (iii) the planning impacts on response activities.

This incident raised a number of issues requiring ongoing consideration including: • Performance of the building in limiting the spread of fires in relation to external balconies • Overcrowding of apartments.

The presentation will explore building design, occupancy issues, firefighting, recovery activities, what worked well and opportunities for improvement.

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CONFERENCE DAY ONE (CONT)

42 Emergency management: Our other challenges in a changing world Adam Dent NSW State Emergency Services Wollongong, NSW The challenging and changing nature of our climate, the uncertainty around our security environment and ever-shifting political environment have shaped the nature of our thinking over the previous decade. As a sector we are moving rapidly toward allhazard, all-agency approaches with varying degrees of success but, undoubtedly, with evidence of strong progress. So where lies the challenges we face next as a sector?

As our risk environment changes around us, our real challenge is to adapt our internal environments and cultures. Are we evolving quickly to change our thinking models or are we still using old paradigms? Is the evolution in incident management models keeping pace with our changing environments and the most contemporary evidence?

Our doctrine, which serves us well, was built in the industrial age and needs to evolve, or perhaps even shift more fundamentally to be driven by information-age thinking. We have solid foundations for incident management that are being extrapolated to manage strategic, political events in an end-to-end emergency management environment. Perhaps our next challenge is blending contemporary leadership and management thinking into our common doctrine. We need to build a genuinely contemporary sector that learns from the agility of business, employs the most advanced thinking around leadership and resource management and opens its doors beyond gender and diversity quotas to a very different workforce than we have previously engaged.

Using the latest research around management thinking, this presentation will challenge us to consider contemporary models that build on incident level success but allow us to manage consequence in new, strategic ways.

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43 International Firefighting – Becoming the ‘norm’?

44 Afterburn: The long story of recovery

David Nugent Parks Victoria Melbourne, VIC

Moira Fahy Australian Broadcasting Corporation Adelaide, SA

Ian Tanner Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources SA Athelstone, SA

‘…the cultural paradigm is both the most obvious and the least developed in fire research…’

In July 2015 Australia answered a request from Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) to send two liaison officers (Agency Representatives, AREPS) to Canada. The task was to work with CIFFC to determine the support that could be offered to Canada during a time when resources were running out in the battle to control hundreds of forest fires across the country. The request resulted in over 100 specialist forest fire fighters from Australia, and 17 from New Zealand, crossing the Pacific Ocean for an extended deployment into British Columbia and Alberta.

This was the second successive year that Australian fire fighters have travelled to Canada to provide support, and one of multiple deployments into North America over the last decade or more.

This session reflects on the work undertaken when deploying into other countries. While the focus is on Australia and New Zealand there were five countries supporting the Canadians during the recent busy 2015 season; Australia, United States, Mexico, New Zealand and South Africa. In a modern world where travel makes global fire suppression personnel much more accessible, the deployment of qualified, experienced and competent personnel is critical for the host countries to ensure the safety of all involved.

This presentation will reflect on some of the challenges and lessons learnt during the recent deployment. How are we preparing ourselves for a future where international firefighting is becoming the ‘norm’? How are agencies preparing, and how do individuals make themselves ready when the call comes?

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45 An analysis of human fatalities from flood hazards in Australia, 1900-2014

Stephen J. Pyne 2007, International Journal of Wildland Fire, 16: 273 The documentary Afterburn follows the stories of three families over three years in one small Victorian community following the devastating 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. In the immediate aftermath of these fires, the Steels Creek community approached historians and a trauma specialist to help them understand the perils of recovery, history and location. In this film we look at the long-term impact of trauma on families and communities in the face of increasing environmental disasters and ask: What does recovery really mean and can communities learn to live with the legacy of fire?

Afterburn features psychologist and leading trauma and disaster specialist Dr Rob Gordon, and social and environmental historians Professor Tom Griffiths and Professor Peter Stanley. Afterburn is the final piece of the Victorian Bushfire Research Project (VBRP), a five-year collaboration between the Centre for Environmental History, Australian National University, the National Museum of Australia, filmmaker Moira Fahy and the Steels Creek community.

The VBRP is the only example of an integrated social, environmental and psychological study of a community living in the most fire-prone region on the planet. It grew organically from the needs of the community, was driven by the adrenalin of a crisis and forged by the belief that something lasting, that would serve future communities, had to come from this terrible tragedy.

Lucinda Coates, Katharine Haynes and Andrew Gissing Risk Frontiers, Macquarie University Sydney, NSW Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC This paper documents the first substantive section of work from a Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC project on losses from natural hazards in Australia; namely, quantifying the impacts of floods with respect to human fatalities from 1900 to 2014. This examination is a fundamental first step to providing an evidence base for future emergency management practice and resource allocation and to enable efficient and strategic risk reduction strategies. The basis of this analysis was PerilAUS, Risk Frontiers’ database of historical natural hazard impacts in Australia. Utilising lessons from similar work on bushfires, this unique database was augmented and verified by the use of coronial inquest records. Inquest reports allow additional and more detailed data about the social, demographic and environmental circumstances of the fatality to be determined. Normalisation of the results, allowing the effects of population across time to be taken into consideration, enables past damaging events to be compared to those impacting presentday society. A longitudinal analysis of the resulting statistics was undertaken, examining demographics (age, gender), location (jurisdiction), seasonality and circumstances surrounding the fatality – both environmental (e.g. the event intensity) and social (e.g. factors around the decisions or actions which led to death).

Some recommendations to emergency management organisations are discussed. Outputs from this research will be of relevance for emergency management policy and practice and will feed into other ongoing research projects of the CRC and elsewhere.

The VBRP includes the documentary Afterburn and two books: Professor Tom Griffith’s and Dr Christine Hansen’s book, Living with Fire: People, Nature and History in Steels Creek, which examines the relationship between people, place and fire; and Professor Peter Stanley’s book, Black Saturday at Steels Creek: Fire and an Australian Community, which looks at what happened on the day.

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CONFERENCE DAY ONE (CONT)

46 Measuring community flood awareness and preparedness in the Maitland area and Lower Hunter Valley, NSW Neil Dufty Molino Stewart Pty Ltd Parramatta, NSW Amanda Hyde and David Webber NSW State Emergency Service Wollongong, NSW Ingrid Berthold Hunter Local Land Services Paterson, NSW The Hunter River of NSW has a long history of flooding. The Hunter Region experienced its largest flood in recorded history during February 1955. Maitland, located in the Lower Hunter Valley, was severely impacted by this flood. Since 1955, only three major floods have been recorded on the Hunter River at Maitland, including the June 2007 flood that followed the ‘Pasha Bulker’ storm.

Maintaining a high level of flood awareness and preparedness is critical for building flood-resilient communities in Maitland and the Lower Hunter Valley. In 2005, the former Hunter-Central Rivers Catchment Management Authority and the NSW State Emergency Service embarked on a community flood education strategy that implemented a range of initiatives to raise awareness and preparedness for flooding, and to raise the profile of the function and limitations of the Lower Hunter Valley Flood Mitigation Scheme. The project included a five-year, social research program that concluded in 2010. The research indicated that the level of community awareness and preparedness had increased during this time.

February 2015 was the 60th anniversary of the 1955 Hunter Region flood. As part of the commemoration, a series of community workshops were conducted in Maitland to help citizens learn more about local flood risks and consider useful initiatives they could implement to stay safe during a flood. The workshops were organised by the NSW State Emergency Service and the Hunter Local Land Services. These workshops provided an opportunity to extend the previous social research program by surveying participants about the status of their own flood awareness and preparedness. The results of the survey and comparison with previous surveys are provided in this paper, with limitations noted. The results provide direction for evaluative strategies, the delivery of community engagement and building community flood resilience in the district.

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47 Building community awareness of flood risk in South Australia

48 Reviewing warnings and information across the country

49 Building information operations in South Australia: Challenges and opportunities

Chrissie Bloss Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources SA Keswick, SA

Reegan Key Emergency Management Victoria East Melbourne, VIC

Peta O’Donohue and Fiona Dunstan SA Country Fire Service Adelaide, SA

The Government of South Australia has developed a website for the community to view floodplain mapping. The website encourages communities to be more resilient by understanding their flood risk, and is a key initiative in South Australia’s implementation of the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience, under the strategic priority of ‘understanding risk’. The website was commissioned in September 2014.

In 2014, two reviews into public information were completed:

Since the devastating Wangary bushfire in 2005 on the South Australian Eyre Peninsula, there has been a significant shift in the priorities and directions of the South Australian Country Fire Service (CFS). As a result of lessons learnt from Wangary, the agency has faced the challenge of making the provision of information to the community in a bushfire just as important as controlling the fire. As a result, in the past 10 years there has been significant investment in community engagement and public information – not always a popular priority in a small agency with limited resources.

Developing a single website for the community to view flood maps has presented many challenges. Significant consultation and negotiations were required between the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR), local councils, the Local Government Association of South Australia, emergency services, and a range of organisations that have undertaken flood studies. Issues arising during this process included: liability and insurance concerns for councils, designing an appropriate web interface for presentation of the information, dealing with inconsistencies in spatial data between studies, agreeing on data-sharing conditions, and managing community and government expectations for sharing of information.

For many organisations in South Australia – particularly councils – the concept of freely and publicly sharing flood risk information to promote community awareness and disaster resilience represents a significant shift away from how flood risk information has previously been managed and communicated. DEWNR has identified several strategies to streamline the process of collecting and sharing future flood studies, including linking data sharing agreements to funding agreements and implementing standard briefs for flood studies to ensure that future outputs are consistent.

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1. The National Review of Warnings and Information, and 2. The National Review of the telephone warnings system Emergency Alert.

The first review considered how warnings and information are provided to communities across multiple hazards and different jurisdictions. It included: an international literature review on public information and warnings during emergencies; analysis of key themes and identification of areas warranting further research; a review of good practice across jurisdictions, identifying themes, findings; and recommendations for future practice improvement. Themes explored spanned: Policy and Process; Channels and Systems; Construction of Warnings; Community Response; Workforce Capability; and Continuous Improvement and Innovation.

The second review looked specifically at Emergency Alert (the telephony-based warning system) and included consultation with operational users and the community. In all, well over 100 subject matter experts and practitioners and 35 organisations contributed to the reviews.

This presentation will cover the key outcomes from both reviews, with a focus on what the national approach is going forward, how agencies and jurisdictions can make improvements in the warnings and information space, and opportunities for future innovations.

This session will review the development of Information Operations in the CFS, describing the challenges and opportunities in building and successfully integrating a function traditionally considered outside of a volunteer fire service’s core activities.

The Information Operations Unit has been developed utilising research and best practice, combining the daily and operational activities of community engagement, social media and media and communications.

The session will compare and contrast CFS’s information and preparedness initiatives prior to 2005 with those of 2015. Case studies of recent fires in South Australia in 2014 and 2015 will be used to demonstrate how an integrated Information Operations Unit has helped raise community awareness about bushfire, build preparedness, foster community resilience and provide threatened communities with targeted, timely and accurate information and warnings during bushfires in SA.

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CONFERENCE DAY ONE (CONT)

50 Are the media undermining agency safety messaging?

Phil Campbell NSW State Emergency Service Wollongong, NSW Emergency agencies expend significant resources on working with communities to dissuade them from undertaking behaviours considered ‘risky’ in natural disasters. For floods, examples include ‘If it’s Flooded, Forget it’ in Australia, ‘Floods Destroy’ from the United Kingdom and ‘Turn Around, Don’t Drown’ from the United States.

During natural disasters such as floods, it is common for the media to show images or video of people undertaking the risky behaviours that emergency agencies are seeking to limit. This is rarely done with any qualification and sometimes presents such behaviours as a ‘fun’ activity (such as children playing in floodwater). The contention of emergency agencies is that such images undermine safety messaging and may normalise such behaviours and lead to potentially dangerous imitative behaviour.

Media in Australia has resisted removing or qualifying such images when approached by emergency services, in some cases denying a link. This is at odds with a survey of 430 respondents by the NSW State Emergency Service in which 19% of respondents stated that they were either ‘significantly’ or ‘somewhat’ influenced in their decision to enter floodwater by images of people undertaking such actions in the media. Additionally, 76% of respondents stated that media images of people in floodwater could influence people to copy that behaviour.

The paper will draw together research from Australia and overseas from emergency agencies, researchers and psychologists to show that media images of risky behaviours can have a measurable negative influence on the behaviour of people in floods. The paper also suggests that the media need to exercise greater responsibility in the images that they show, and recommends that the Australian Press Council and emergency service agencies develop an advisory for journalists regarding the use of such images.

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51 Queensland: Setting the standard for disaster management Iain MacKenzie Office of Inspector-General Emergency Management Brisbane, QLD The Queensland Government is committed to making Queensland the most disaster-resilient state in Australia. To support this commitment and the safety of all Queenslanders, the Office of the Inspector-General Emergency Management has been charged with establishing the means to provide confidence in the disaster management system. Too often, when we refer to emergency management, our thoughts are immediately directed towards police, fire and mainstream emergency service providers. In reality these agencies are only part of the puzzle. Their roles are very much response related. Certainly they play a key and often under emphasised role in preparation and planning but their members see themselves as ‘responders’, not bureaucrats who get weighed down in issues such as hazard identification, risk analysis or mitigation activities. The emphasis in future must be on making all of those with responsibilities in this space accountable for their part across the full Prevention Preparedness Response Recovery (PPRR) spectrum, including all departments, local governments, non-government organisations and government commercial businesses.

The future must be about standards, about clearly identifying the responsibilities of entities and holding them to account before the royal commission or commission of inquiry is required. The standard for disaster management was introduced in Queensland in 2014.

A year on, self-assessments have been run across all Queensland Government departments and local governments alike. The results have identified a number of areas for improvement but also some very clear examples of good practice to be shared across the sector.

The Standard for Disaster Management in Queensland establishes performance requirements for all entities involved in disaster management and forms the basis of assurance activities undertaken by my office. This presentation examines the impact the standard has had over the past 12 months, the importance of ongoing collaboration with stakeholders and the need for all involved to accept their responsibility and embrace accountability.

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52 Emergency management for the 21st century

53 Improving interoperability in UK emergency response

Roger T Jones OAM Monash University Gisborne, VIC

Steve Hamm CFOA National Resilience (UK) Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom

Our current concepts of emergency management are still based on understandings reached and models developed in the last quarter of the 20th century. These concepts are primarily focused on the management of events and on the event management functions that need to be performed by emergency managers. To meet our understandings of the community’s needs in the 21st century, we need to be challenging those concepts.

The ability of emergency services to come together at the scene of operations and to rapidly act to save lives is paramount in emergency response. At major incidents involving significant numbers of lives at risk this becomes more difficult due to factors such as the scale of the incident site, the physical situation and the multiple sources of information and sites of activity.

This paper traces the later 20th century development of ‘civil protection’ concepts and policies in the light of new understandings of potential threats to civil life, property and necessary infrastructure, with the consequent transfer of such ‘protection’ responsibilities from defence to civil authorities.

Studies in fields such as the earth sciences and sociology have promoted better understanding of hazards and impact consequences, and encourage the development of event management functions – Prevention, Preparedness, Response and Recovery (PPRR), the ‘five Rs’ and their ilk – each in turn coming to shelter under broad umbrellas such as ‘the prepared community’ and ‘resilience’.

Not all such functions are the sole responsibility of emergency managers, for example, prevention/risk reduction and recovery/ reconstruction. In many instances, given the complexities of modern government structures, responsibilities can be owned by or shared between a number of agencies and portfolios. Major emergencies and disasters clearly call for a whole-of-government response; but as disaster impacts become more frequent and costly, governments themselves turn increasingly to post-event ‘royal commissions’ and their equivalents that allow them to set agendas (terms of reference) and ‘buy time’. Then, in a federation such as ours, issues of governmental level of responsibility and governance arise.

As a result of historical events spanning a number of decades, some common themes identified in the United Kingdom were apparent in management of major incidents. These common factors focus on situational awareness and joint decision-making, and these components formed the basis of an improvement program commissioned by the UK Government in 2012.

Commissioned as the ‘Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Program’ (JESIP) it ran for two years from 2012. The presentation will examine the JESIP program, identifying key drivers from UK experiences of major incidents, outline key deliverables of the program, and shared thinking derived at how emergency services can integrate in the optimum way at all levels of command and control.

Additionally, the presentation will detail how the fire and rescue capability components form part of the UK National Resilience Program, bringing together multi-agency capability to protect the critical national infrastructure at the strategic level. The presenter was a member of the JESIP board, Assistant Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade until 2014 and is now responsible for assuring the UK National Resilience capabilities. He has command experience in responses to major emergencies in London, including arrangements made for additional risks when hosting the 2012 Olympic Games.

The paper concludes with a consideration of possible directions in the development of emergency management concepts and policies appropriate to Australia’s 21st century needs.

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CONFERENCE DAY ONE (CONT)

54 Building sustainable community resilience through a model of shared responsibility Julie Harris and Danny Gunn Metropolitan Fire Brigade East Melbourne, VIC Background: Over the next decade the community will undergo significant change bringing new challenges for fire services. These will include higher levels of social and financial disadvantage, the unprecedented growth in single-person households and declining levels of social connection. In addition our population is ageing, including an estimated 30% who will be culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD), and more people with higher levels of disability will be cared for via an ‘in home’ model of community care. For fire services under increasing pressure to develop and build community resilience, the expectation of government will also be for increased efficiencies with fewer resources.

Objectives: This presentation will identify strategies developed by Metropolitan Fire Brigade to address these issues through a model of shared responsibility at the local, state and national levels.

Methods: While fire services have led debate and reform in relation to safety in the built environment, industry and natural resource management, there has been less focus on the frameworks and entities that have established relationships with or responsibilities for a growing proportion of the community. This session will identify alternative frameworks such as policy, program delivery, training and legislation to build sustainable community resilience outcomes.

Findings: Three case studies will outline how broader analysis of evidence and trends identified common risk and demographic features. This information led to key stakeholders with a shared, and sometimes higher, level of responsibility for those at risk and gaps in existing policy, service provision and regulations. Based on this information strategies and treatments were developed which have delivered sustainable outcomes based on partnership at a local, state and national level.

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55 Whats counts is not always counted: A multi-agency approach to measuring community engagement to optimise program and project impact Andrew Richards and Rosanna Goodchild NSW State Emergency Service, Wollongong, NSW Sunara Fernando NSW Rural Fire Service Lidcombe, NSW Chris Lewis Fire & Rescue NSW Greenacre, NSW Australian emergency services have traditionally measured community engagement, education and awareness activities using a variety of quantitative measures such as the number of brochures delivered and number of hits on a website. Used in isolation, such metrics can skew agency performance, the perceived success of initiatives and interventions, and allocations of resources and funding. Such measures have led to agencies that are reliant on marketing collateral and passive one-way information to make an impact in their communities of practice.

We are transitioning into a paradigm of shared responsibility, building resilience and engagement activities that involve proactively working with communities. It is increasingly evident that these quantitative measures need to be reconciled with qualitative measures that gauge the impact of work with NSW communities and the organisation and community contexts that contribute to their success.

Challenges arise when we measure complex forces in society that are not necessarily interdependent nor easily converted into numbers or consistent between projects, programs, facilitators or communities of interest.

The NSW State Emergency Service is leading a project in partnership with NSW Rural Fire Service and Fire & Rescue NSW to explore how we can address these challenges and enhance the way we measure community engagement activities in the emergency management sector. It aims to: assist agencies to seek to strike a more holistic approach to allocating funding and resources; better evaluate the impact of engagement projects and programs; inspire the practitioners; and improve risk management across preparedness, prevention, response and recovery phases of disasters. This paper will explore some of the common outcomes and a model to measure community engagement education and awareness in the emergency management sector.

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56 Communicating bushfire risk

57 Australian firefighters’ cancer and mortality study

Suriya Vij and Stephanie Carr Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning Melbourne, VIC

Deborah C Glass, Anthony del Monaco, Sabine Pircher and Malcolm Sim Monash University Melbourne, VIC

The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning has adopted a risk-based approach to bushfire management. By partnering the latest science with the knowledge and experience of local communities and firefighters, we have a new level of understanding of bushfire risk to people, economic industries, water and environmental values.

Scientists have pointed to the need for a shared approach to bushfires between government agencies and communities – particularly in providing more specific risk information, but also understanding why an awareness of fire risk often does not translate to safer action.

Communication about bushfire risk brings opportunities and challenges. How do you tell someone who is anxious that they are not at high risk? How do you tell someone that their community is at high risk without causing alarm? How can we look at the complexities and trade-offs of managing this risk? How can we balance the impacts of vegetation management over here when the resulting bushfire risk reduction is over there? How can we encourage people to think in a shared responsibility context and at the scale that major bushfires are likely to impact? How can agencies and communities work better together to spark action that is appropriate at a local scale?

We have been exploring four methods: • Risk communication • Deliberative democracy • Fire learning networks • Phoenix bushfire simulation and risk tools This presentation will explore the techniques we have used, how they worked, challenges, how they could be improved and will provide some avenues for action that agencies and communities can use to understand bushfire risk and take action.

Steven Vander Hoorn Statistical Consulting Centre, University of Melbourne Melbourne, VIC Overseas studies have shown that paid firefighters have an increased risk of cancer but there is little evidence concerning volunteer firefighters. A retrospective cohort was assembled from Australian firefighting agencies’ personnel records. The cohort included 18,032 career full-time, 13,701 part-time paid and 201,056 volunteer firefighters. These were matched to national mortality and cancer incidence records. Death and cancer risks were calculated by sex for the three firefighter groups. Risk was also calculated by employment duration and using agency incident data.

Mortality was significantly decreased for men from all three firefighter groups and for female volunteer firefighters compared to the general Australian population. This is probably a result of the healthy worker effect and lower smoking rates. No major categories of death were significantly elevated in any of the firefighter groups but deaths from cancer were less reduced than deaths from other causes. For male career full-time firefighters, cancer incidence was raised for all cancers combined, prostate cancer and melanoma particularly for those employed for longer than 20 years. Prostate cancer but not melanoma showed a trend with increasing number of incidents. For male part-time paid firefighters, cancer incidence was significantly raised for all cancers combined. There was an increase in prostate cancer and melanoma. The pattern of findings was similar for male full-time and part-time paid firefighters which is suggestive that these are employment-related effects.

Male volunteer firefighters had no overall increased risk of cancer, or increasing risk with service duration, but there was a trend with increasing number of incidents attended. The strongest association was with prostate cancer. There were too few female paid firefighters for meaningful analyses. Cancer incidence for female volunteer firefighters was not raised.

Further follow up is recommended in five years when the larger number of cancer and death events will increase the power of the study.

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CONFERENCE DAY ONE (CONT)

58 Perception and reality: re-entry into fire scenes should be subject to physiological monitoring Anthony Walker ACT Fire & Rescue Canberra, ACT University of Canberra Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Canberra, ACT Ben Rattray University of Canberra Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Canberra, ACT Introduction: Australian firefighters work in hot environments, wearing heavy, impermeable personal protective equipment (PPE). Protracted incidents regularly see firefighters re-entering fire affected structures multiple times separated by short, unstructured recovery periods. Re-entry protocols currently rely solely on individual perceptions of wellbeing. It is unclear whether this method of risk mitigation is appropriate. Thus, this study aimed to compare perceptual with physiological responses in firefighters when they work in the heat.

Methods: Seventy-seven urban firefighters (38.9 ± 9.0 years, 180.0 ± 10.0 cm and 84.3 ± 9.3 kg) completed two 20-minute work tasks in a heat chamber (105 ± 5 °C), separated by a 10-minute recovery interval where they removed their jackets and consumed 600 millilitres of water. Core temperatures (Tc) and skin temperatures (Tsk) along with perceptual measures including rate of perceived exertion (RPE) and thermal sensation (TS) were measured at 5-minute intervals as well as the conclusion of the recovery period.

Results:

59 PANEL: Is our culture good for us?

60 A bushfire fuel classification for Australia

61 Planned burn evaluation Spring 2014

Chair: Stuart Ellis Chief Executive Officer, AFAC East Melbourne, VIC

Gary Featherston AFAC East Melbourne, VIC

Emily Doran Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning East Melbourne, VIC

Jim Higgins Chief Executive Officer, Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board East Melbourne, VIC

The Bushfire Fuel Classification (BFC) will enable the categorisation of fuel complexes in order to capture spatial diversity as well as dynamic and structural complexity in a way that accommodates existing models for fire behaviour and assists development of fire-management, decision-support systems. It is the result of a collaborative effort to develop nationally consistent and locally relevant bushfire fuel classification. The concept and framework for the BFC are introduced, an overview of the proposed BFC is provided, the interdependency on multiple data sources and applications is highlighted and the case study process used to test the framework operationally across field fuel plots and the resultant GIS layers is described. Finally, it discusses the need for a cohesive effort to implement the BFC.

A multi-faceted approach was utilised in the evaluation of the 33 spring burns conducted in the Murray Goldfields fire district in 2014. Field assessments were used in conjunction with desktop evaluations of RapidEye satellite imagery and colour infrared (CIR) aerial imagery in the GIS software program ESRI ArcGis 10.2.

Different measures of planned burn coverage, burn severity and residual overall fuel hazard were assessed. Seven burns were field assessed through the use of transects over the planned burn area, recording residual overall fuel hazard as well as burn severity classification at sample points. CIR aerial photography was acquired for 10 burns giving an accurate indication of burn extent. RapidEye satellite imagery was acquired for 23 burns which was utilised in the newly developed Rapid Risk Assessment Teams Burn Severity ArcMap Tool, assessing the burn severity and extent.

Adam Dent Commissioner, NSW State Emergency Service Wollongong, NSW Ariana Henderson Manager Fire & Emergency Recovery - Fire & Emergency Services Directorate Melbourne, VIC Lauren Wait SA Country Fire Service Adelaide, SA The lack of diversity in fire and emergency services, particularly our paid services has been recognised for many years with little having changed. While some volunteer agencies reflect up to 30% females, some paid services are below 2%. Inclusion of CALD and a broader representation reflecting our society remains a major challenge.

How critical is this issue for our industry? What are the facts and can we identify the real opportunities? Confirming what diversity brings to our agencies and clearly identify the blockages will be an outcome of this session.

Come and hear from Commissioners, staff and volunteers.

This session will include opportunities to answer questions from the floor.

Mean Tc was 38.0 ± 1.3 °C at the end of the first 20-minute simulation and climbed to 38.3 ± 0.5 °C at the conclusion of the 10-minute seated recovery period. Tsk was not significantly different between 20-minute simulations, however, along with RPE and TS, Tsk dropped significantly during the 10-minute recovery period (p<0.001) independent of an ongoing rise in Tc.

The main objectives of the fuel classification are: to synthesise fuel attributes required by fire behaviour models and other land management tools into a finite set of categories that ideally represent all possible fuel types in a region and their subsequent fire behaviour and effects; to catalogue fuel attributes and parameters describing the dynamics and physical structure of each fuel type; and to maintain a fuel library (containing concepts, definitions, and references) and documentation of procedures for assessment and inventory of fuels.

The BFC consists of a framework and a set of standards for fuel classification. The framework provides a structure to allow fuel to be described by its component type and structural form based on vegetation and relates these to the fuel parameters and attributes.

The attributes are those physical and chemical parameters that affect ignition, heat release, rate of combustion and spotting potential. The completed standards are a glossary of fuel terms and a guideline for measuring fuel parameters. It is proposed to include a standard on dynamic fuel models.

RapidEye imagery was an efficient evaluation of burn extent and severity. However, the spatial resolution (5 metres) of the imagery meant that for burns smaller than 30 hectares in size, assessment became difficult. The aerial photography at a high spatial resolution (15 centimetres) supported accurate assessment of burn extent, but not burn severity.

The results show that around 80% of the planned burns achieved their operational fuel reduction objectives, with two of the burns ‘overachieving’ and four ‘underachieving’. The resulting mapping layers developed will enable detailed fire-history mapping which will assist with planning bushfire suppression and bushfire management planning. It will also allow for more precise fuel accumulation data which will increase the accuracy for bushfire prediction models such as Phoenix Rapidfire. Mapping low-moderate burn severity and unburnt areas will enhance the accuracy of tolerable fire-interval maps. This will, therefore, allow for more accurate species distribution analysis and assist in analysing ecosystem resilience.

Discussion: The strong relationship between Tsk and perceptual data likely resulted from localised cooling following PPE removal and subsequent exposure to a cooler environment, despite Tc continuing to rise to levels approaching safe limits. In the absence of reliable physiological monitoring during emergency responses, it is likely that firefighters are re-entering fire scenes with increasing Tc, likely leading to premature fatigue and reduced ability to safely complete work tasks. We recommend that appropriate monitoring of physiological strain be considered for use in long-duration firefighting events.

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CONFERENCE DAY ONE (CONT)

62 Coal-mine emergency management taskforce: Partnering with industry to build resilience

63 The response to maritime environmental emergencies: A multi-sectoral approach

64 Working for our people: The changed relationship between NZPFU and NZFS

65 Building capacity in a command environment: A joint Fire & Rescue NSW / AIPM initiative

Peter Schmidt Emergency Management Victoria Melbourne, VIC

Jamie Storrie Australian Maritime Safety Authority Braddon, ACT

Leigh Deuchars New Zealand Fire Service Wellington, New Zealand

Andrew Singh Australian Institute of Police Management Manly, NSW

On 9 February 2014 - a day of extreme fire danger in the Latrobe Valley in Gippsland - Victoria experienced two significant bushfires that threatened communities, as well as critical infrastructure including two of the three major open-cut, brown-coal mines that provide the fuel for power generation in Victoria. Spotting from these bushfires impacted the Hazelwood mine starting many fires within the mine itself. The mine has highly volatile exposed masses of coal in an excavation some 100 metres deep and covers an area significantly greater than the entire Melbourne CBD.

Australia’s National Plan for Maritime Environmental Emergencies (‘the National Plan’) is a multi-sectoral and cross jurisdictional strategy for preparedness, response and recovery from maritime casualty and marine pollution incidents. The National Plan has been in effect since 1973 and has proven to be an effective means of coordinating the resources of the Australian Government, states and territories and the maritime and oil industries, to minimise the impacts of maritime environmental emergencies on the Australian community and environment.

Derek Best New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union Wellington, New Zealand

Ken Murphy Fire & Rescue NSW Sydney, NSW

This presentation will cover the impact of changing relationships between representative bodies and fire service management on the culture of the organisation and improved outcomes for our people.

The fire burned for 45 days, providing unprecedented extinguishment challenges while directly impacting the community of Morwell, with a population of 14,000 people, and other surrounding communities. The smoke from the fire shrouded communities for long periods of time and was a serious health emergency due to the mass of the smoke and the level of byproducts and particulates contained therein.

Two attributes contribute significantly to this enduring success in managing complex responses to major maritime environmental emergencies:

Particularly from the mid-1990s, the NZ Firefighters Union-NZ Fire Service relationship was characterised by suspicion, lack of respect and myopia, leading to frequent disputation and a failure to make positive progress, and to a culture of division between workers and management. All of this has impacted negatively on the organisation and its people. As an example, the Pilling Report on the Christchurch earthquake noted that this divide was a negative contributor in dealing with the challenges faced in managing this tragedy. In the past three years, fire service management and union officials appreciated the need to change the relationship to achieve better outcomes for our communities and fire service people.

Can an organisation create a new sense of shared responsibility within the community to foster and build disaster resilience? Banjo Patterson in The Man from Snowy River tells us one person, attuned to contours and ridges of the local environment, can achieve far more than a pack of ‘cracks’ who ‘learnt to ride droving on the plains’. So can one person, in one town, help to create a new direction in emergency management in their community? Can one person, after years of being in command, learn to lead in a different way?

Subsequently, an independent Inquiry into the fire was conducted and handed down its findings in August 2014; this included 18 recommendations and 61 affirmations to be actioned. These included some key initiatives relating to incident management and the integration of industry into the incident management structure under Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System (AIIMS), community engagement, air monitoring, health and welfare.

A State Government multi-agency taskforce was established to draw together all relevant government agencies, the coal mine operators and local government to review the fire/ emergency management preparedness of the mines, oversee the implementation of relevant Inquiry affirmations and support improved capability and interoperability between the coal-mine industry, government agencies and community. This presentation will provide an overview of the work of the taskforce that has demonstrated a best-practice approach to delivering outcomes for communities. It has set a new direction for emergency management in terms of integrated strategic planning and operations between government agencies and industry, and builds on partnerships to provide tangible outcomes for greater efficiencies and safety outcomes.

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• Collaborative – a combination of historical practice, regulation and necessity has created a system that requires significant collaboration across the public and private sectors and across the spectrum of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. The National Plan encompasses these cross-sectoral relationships through the establishment of a governance arrangement that encompasses all stakeholders, integrated planning, cross training and exercising and continuous consultation.

• Voluntary – through practical experience and application, Australia has developed a strong and enduring model for mutual aid and support, where all parties voluntarily come together to manage their collective risks. Over the past 40 years, government, industry and other sectors have debated, negotiated and agreed their various contributions to the National Plan risk framework and response system.

This paper provides a brief overview of the National Plan and its historical development, places maritime environmental emergencies in the broader context of Australian emergency management, describes the national response arrangements on completion of the recent national review and considers future challenges.

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Background:

This presentation will discuss: • Background and history • The issues and context • The factors that led to a breakdown in the relationship • The drivers for change • The actions undertaken including • Joint committees and senior working parties with a genuine commitment to find solutions • Working to understand and respect the different viewpoints and where we have issues in common • Jointly fronting the proposals for the last collective negotiations • Supporting a change in style between management and staff • The achievements so far • The challenges faced and how to overcome them.

Fire & Rescue NSW (FRNSW) has been working with the Australian Institute of Police Management (AIPM) to facilitate organisational change through the development of its regional leaders. The ‘Leadership Musters’ are premised on three assumptions: Firstly, local problems require local solutions with changes being driven up, rather than driven down Secondly, changing demographics, and social and economic pressures require new approaches if local emergency management capabilities are to be maintained and, Thirdly, leaders have to find change within themselves if they are to engage and influence others to develop new local solutions to ‘strike firelight from the flint stones’.

The ‘Leadership Musters’ have uncovered a hunger for new knowledge and skills and a desire for a new engagement between organisations, leaders and followers. Like The Man from Snowy River, often the initial focus is on the ‘tried and noted riders with their stockhorse snuffing with delight’; few pay attention to the ‘small and weedy beast’ from the Snowy. Retained Fire Captains are neither small nor weedy, and with local knowledge, experience, ‘pluck undaunted’ and ‘fierce hot courage’, they have the opportunity to lead the renewal and rebuilding of the social capacity of their communities to be more resilient in the face of emergencies.

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CONFERENCE DAY TWO

66 Diversity: Friend or enemy of cohesion?

67 Beyond the obvious: Using social media to build resilient communities

Catherine McGregor Royal Australian Air Force Neutral Bay, NSW Group Captain McGregor AM is a speech writer and strategic adviser to the Chief of the Air Force. Her career in the Australian Army spans 40 years, during which she has held a variety of regimental and staff appointments. She is now the highest-ranking trans-woman military official.

During her presentation, Catherine will share her personal story as well as her insights. She will highlight how she has progressed in her career and is now recognised as one of Australia’s most prominent transgender women.

This new direction for her has experienced many highs, with just as many lows along the way. Diversity comes hand in hand with courage and true leaders understand that unless they support such change they will never have a diverse culture within their organisation.

Catherine will provide an insight into how the ADF have approached gender and diversity within their organisation and the support they have provided to her personally and professionally.

Trefor Munn-Venn Rhapsody Strategies Ottawa, Ontario, Canada You’ve already heard that you should be using social media to connect with the communities you serve – you’re probably already doing it. But most organisations struggle to get beyond the mechanics of social media and get the outcomes they’re really after; communities that are engaged, prepared, and resilient. Much of the social media focus tends to centre on what platforms to use, how often to be posting or tweeting, managing content calendars, and how to reach more people. These are all important but they are secondary factors.

We’re going to have a candid conversation about: • Why it’s harder than ever to get people’s attention and how to cut through the clutter • The importance of how we do things over what we are doing • What a trusted relationship actually looks like and how to build one • Understanding the ‘state’ your community is in • How to apply behavioural psychology to connect more effectively with your community and to help them take the actions you need them to take • We will also explore an alternative communications model that starts with the actions you want your community to take and then works backwards to the messages that you are sending on a regular basis, both through social media and other channels.

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CONFERENCE DAY TWO (CONT)

68 Recent Canadian disasters – lessons learned and paths forward Paul Boissonneault Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs Ottawa, Ontario, Canada The Alberta floods that started on 19 June 2013 and the LacMégantic train derailment of 6 July 2013 are two tragic incidents that have changed the complexity of emergency management in Canada. In this presentation, delegates will be provided with visual perspectives and information sharing on what took place, what was learned, what has changed and how all of these questions affect the community resiliency and necessary legislative advancements.

Alberta Floods 2013: In the days leading up to 19 June 2013, Alberta received heavy rainfall that triggered catastrophic flooding described by the provincial government as the worst in Alberta’s history. Areas affected included all of the major rivers and tributaries. A total of 32 local declarations of states of emergency were declared and 28 emergency operation centres were activated as water levels rose and communities were under evacuation orders. Five people were confirmed dead as a direct result of the flooding and over 100,000 people were displaced throughout the region.

Some 2200 Canadian troops were deployed to assist in flooded areas and total damage estimates exceed $5 billion for insurable damages. Receding waters gave way to a mammoth clean-up of affected areas, aided by a spontaneous volunteer campaign in which many home owners were assisted by complete strangers. In particular, a perspective of Calgary, Alberta, towards lessons learned, community resolve, and leadership will be provided.

Lac-Mégantic train derailment: On 6 July 2013, an unattended 74-car freight train carrying crude oil rolled downhill and derailed, resulting in the fire and explosion of multiple tank cars. Forty-seven people were killed and more than 30 buildings were destroyed in LacMégantic, Quebec, a town of approximately 6000 people. In this small community, the emergency services were completely overwhelmed and this was the deadliest rail accident in Canada’s history since 1864. Delegates will receive information on local impact, resolve of mutual aid and automatic aid within the emergency services community, and the changes to industry and legislation after a tragedy of this magnitude. Specific reference will be provided in relation to the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs’ role in strategic advisory and task force representation in helping propel public safety with respect to the transportation of dangerous goods. Ways forward include stakeholder engagement and trying to ensure that history does not become the future after a tragic event.

69 The Eden Valley Fire, South Australia, January 2014 Paul Bierman and John Nairn Bureau of Meteorology Kent Town, SA Rob Sandford SA Country Fire Service Adelaide, SA The 2014 Eden Valley fire threatened several townships when it rapidly spread overnight on 17 January. The exceptional meteorological conditions that preceded this fire and contributed to its rapid spread are expected to occur more frequently in this region of South Australia under a warming climate. Understanding how these conditions evolved will assist responders and policy makers adapt to new forms of extreme fire behaviour.

During the morning of 17 January 2014 the Eden Valley bushfire ignited in grassland in the Mount Lofty Ranges, owing to flare-up from a fire started by lightning on 14 January. Severe fire danger conditions with temperatures near 40 °C, relative humidity below 20% and moderate north-westerly winds enabled the fire to quickly spread south-eastwards. Around 7pm, after the fire burnt an area of approximately 4000 hectares, the winds shifted southerly and increased dramatically. The gale-force southerly winds were observed to exceed 63 km/h-1 for more than one hour and peak at 90 km/h-1.

The fire drove rapidly northwards overnight, burning approximately 20,000 hectares and threatening several towns. By the evening of 18 January the fire had burnt a total of 24,246 hectares with a perimeter of 136 kilometres.

The fire behaviour, which allowed such a large area to be burned in a very short amount of time, was driven by exceptional meteorological conditions. The hotter and drier than average conditions leading into January 2014 and the extreme heatwave that affected the state in the week of January 13-17 likely helped to precondition the fuels for burning. The continually evolving cold front then eventually produced a surging southerly surface wind that drove the fire rapidly northwards, while the upper north-westerly winds transported raised embers to the south-east in contrast to the main fire spread.

70 Flood, fire, storm and drought: New tools and technologies to support national disaster mitigation, preparation and response

72 Professional Pathways Design and Implementation Project - Transforming capability and culture through a cohesive training framework

Stuart Minchin Geoscience Australia Symonston, ACT

Darren Klemm and Brad Delavale Department of Fire and Emergency Services Perth, WA

Australia, the land of droughts and flooding rains, is beset by largescale natural disasters on a regular basis. A highly skilled group of emergency services has developed in states and territories to manage the response to these disasters when they occur, which always raises the question of the role of the Commonwealth in disaster response. There are a number of new technologies, tools and capabilities becoming available nationally through Australian Government agencies such as Geoscience Australia and the Bureau of Meteorology, which can not only assist with disaster mitigation and resilience planning and preparedness, but also potentially provide near real-time situational awareness to on-ground responders in a consistent and coordinated way across our large and diverse nation.

In January 2013, following the completion of the WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services’ Professional Development Operating Model Review, the Professional Pathways Design and Implementation Project (PPDIP) commenced.

This presentation will discuss some of the latest capabilities and tools that are becoming available, and discuss critical directions for the future. Key topics covered will include: The International Charter for Space and Major Disasters; planned enhancements to the Sentinel Hotspots service; the Australian Flood Risk Information Portal; the Water Observations from Space (WOfS) product; and key disaster and exposure modelling technologies.

PPDIP has clarified the essential skills and competencies to support a sustainable model for personnel to effectively and safely perform roles, providing:

71 On a journey to a profession Stuart Ellis AFAC East Melbourne, VIC In 2014 the AFAC Council endorsed the establishment of a national certification scheme for incident managers. This has been proposed as an important element of the professional journey for those involved in incident management and indeed, broader emergency management. It is consistent with many other professional bodies establishing formal certification schemes to accredit individuals nationally. With fire and emergency services regularly deploying interstate to support other jurisdictions and the Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System (AIIMS) increasingly being used by those outside emergency services in areas such as health, local government, mining, education, infrastructure and transport, there is a clear need to ensure emergency managers remain well informed regarding their profession and maintain professional standards.

This scheme is one significant element towards developing fire and emergency services into a formal profession.

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PPDIP’s key objective was to define a vision for the skills required to perform each rank, role or level across career and volunteer personnel, including: • Integration across the functional groups • Applicability to all staff and volunteers • Visibility to all personnel • Key leadership skills • Clear incident management development.

• Personal development direction • Options for development • A framework of courses • The ability to accommodate volunteer group’s rules and regulations • A revised training delivery model offering greater instructor flexibility aligned to national training standards.

A project operating model has subsequently been designed and implemented for: • Technical training – a common approach with shared material, refresher training for critical skills, and pathways progression • Leadership development – vocational and tertiary pathways for personnel aligned with roles, levels and ranks • Incident management – pathways and training courses for each role, aligned to the Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System (AIIMS) • Voluntary qualifications – optional program allowing volunteers to attain a nationally recognised qualification.

This presentation will present valuable insights into the design and approach taken to achieve the project’s significant milestones to date, including: • Development of the pathway’s framework for each role • Development and online publishing of 28 pathways accommodating over 28,000 volunteers • Volunteer pathways implementation state-wide • Mapping the future systems and technical platforms.

As PPDIP moves into the final 12 months of the project, attendees will also be informed of the project’s progress and how earlier learnings have influenced the project’s continuing work.

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CONFERENCE DAY TWO (CONT)

73 Going to the dogs: Interoperability lessons identified in USAR canine team development Sue Pritchard NSW State Emergency Service Wollongong, NSW Canine urban search and rescue (USAR) teams are internationally recognised as an integral component of emergency response operations in natural disaster and terrorism emergencies. Largescale emergencies, such as the response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, utilised over 350 canine search teams to find survivors in collapsed structures and impacted areas. In Australia, the development and utilisation of volunteer canine USAR and area search teams is emerging as a response capability being embraced on a national level by our emergency services.

In 2010, the NSW State Emergency Service (NSWSES) partnered with Fire & Rescue NSW (FRNSW) to develop a Canine USAR Unit to support the NSW USAR Taskforce. The NSWSES Canine Unit is one of two internationally accredited USAR Canine Units in Australia.

Other volunteer canine USAR capabilities have been developed in Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria with varying interoperability arrangements in place with emergency services.

This paper follows the development of the NSWSES Canine Unit and its partnership arrangements with FRNSW, to provide a specialist trained and sustainable search capability of handlers and their dogs. It outlines the challenges emergency response encountered and lessons identified in the development of the capability, and looks to the future of specialist volunteers and their dogs working side by side with emergency services in supporting communities to respond to emergencies.

In changing climatic and geo-political environments, where natural disasters and terrorist activities are predicted to increase in scale and frequency, this growth in canine search capability development and utilisation also heralds a maturity in Australia’s emergency response repertoire.

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74 An earthquake loss scenario for Adelaide Valentina Koschatzky, Felipe Dimer de Oliveira, and Paul G Somerville Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Risk Frontiers, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW Despite its low seismic activity, Australia is more vulnerable to earthquakes than one would expect due to concentration of population and large stock of buildings that are structurally unable to withstand even moderate seismic shaking. This was demonstrated by the 5.6 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Newcastle in 1989, one of the most costly natural disasters in Australia, despite its low magnitude. One question elicited by these circumstances is: What would happen if one of Australia’s main cities were hit by an earthquake similar to Newcastle’s? An example of near miss is offered by the magnitude 5.4 earthquake that struck Adelaide in 1954, whose epicentre, far from developed areas at the time, would lie in densely developed areas if it were to occur today.

Providing realistic estimates for natural disaster scenarios is essential for emergency managers. A systematic approach for developing such scenarios can reveal blind spots and vulnerabilities in planning. In this work, we will present the first results of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC project for developing natural disaster scenarios using the city of Adelaide as a case study. We have developed and implemented a methodology to estimate losses to property, life, infrastructure and essential facilities based on the model put forward by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This methodology was used to estimate the consequences of an event similar to the 1954 Adelaide earthquake. The results of this exercise are presented as maps showing the distribution of casualties, losses and likely damage to infrastructure and essential facilities.

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75 Communities are changing...Volunteering is changing...What will your brigade/unit look like in 2035?

Ali Martin Country Fire Authority Burwood East, VIC Imagine your brigade or unit 10, 20, or 30 years from now. Will it look like it does today? Will people still volunteer in the same way as they do today? Communities are changing and the way people want to volunteer is changing. To ensure our agencies remain sustainable and volunteering continues to grow, many are opening their minds to new and innovative ways of doing things.

This presentation outlines the Brigade Sustainability Pilot (BSP) approach that returns to a ‘back to basics’ style based on seven key areas of sustainability: people; training; leadership; capacity to deliver; community connectedness; finance and administration; infrastructure and equipment. It values good, old-fashioned, faceto-face support that is tailored and practical to suit local needs. It reconnects us with the benefits of keeping it simple and looking to support our people in a holistic manner, with a local context.

76 Recruitment of volunteers: Queensland State Emergency Service Alan Hatcher Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Brisbane, QLD Historically, the only selection criteria applied to the recruitment of volunteers into the Queensland State Emergency Service (QSES) has been a criminal record check signed off by the Queensland Police Service (QPS) and a medical declaration signed by the individual volunteer. The objective of this paper was to explore the effects of introducing some form of physical and psychological selection testing process prior to recruiting volunteers for the QSES. The research for the paper utilised an online survey sent to all QSES volunteers. Whilst the sample was very small the results were still quite surprising in that analysis of the results showed support from the participants for some form of selection process (physical and psychological) as well as an ongoing physical fitness test. The author will discuss the main finding and potential effects on volunteering in Queensland.

This presentation will focus on some of the key discoveries and learnings the BSP has unearthed, including: • Volunteer recruitment verses re-engagement of volunteers – considering other options to recruitment as a solution.

• Innovative membership models – tackling cultural change in a gentle way • Brigades dealing with growth and decline • Membership diversity – it all starts with a need for a change in culture • Community connectedness – why this is so important to the growth of volunteerism and building a sustainable workforce for the future • Transient communities – real life creative solutions from brigades.

Predicting where we’ll be and what our communities will look like in the decades to come is a complex challenge. This is why the BSP is an exciting project. It’s all about working together to support our people and seeking solutions to help us plan and prepare to face these challenges head on.

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CONFERENCE DAY TWO (CONT)

77 Disaster risk reduction: An international perspective, and implications for the Australian emergency management sector Damien Killalea Tasmania Fire Service Hobart, TAS The Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan, in March 2015 builds on the United Nations’ Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-15. The Framework serves as a guide for UN member states to the development of local and regional strategies to mitigate disasters, particularly through increasing the resilience of nations and communities. The Sendai conference resulted in a revised, concise forward-looking document that considers recent experience gained through regional and national strategies for disaster risk reduction (DRR), presents a revised DRR framework and identifies opportunities for regional cooperation in the implementation of DRR strategies.

The revised Framework for Action is likely to influence Australia’s National Strategy for Disaster Resilience (NSDR), and hence the focus of Australia and New Zealand Emergency Management Council’s (ANZEMC) work, with a particular emphasis on actions to implement the strategy. In turn, a revised NSDR will influence the priorities of the Australian emergency management sector; that is, AFAC member agencies. This is particularly pertinent as we anticipate an increasing frequency of intense weather-related disasters in coming decades.

This paper will explore the key themes addressed at the Sendai conference, potential implications for the NSDR, for the emergency management sector and for AFAC members, expressed in its Strategic Directions for Fire and Emergency Services as Strategic Direction 1 – ‘Supporting resilient communities through risk reduction’.

78 National Strategy for Disaster Resilience Aaron Verlin, Samantha Chard and Gary Anderson Attorney-General’s Department, Australian Government Canberra, ACT Every year, Australian communities face devastating losses caused by disasters. Bushfires, floods, storms, other hazards and their associated consequences have significant impacts on communities, the economy, infrastructure and the environment.

Over the past decade, governments have collaborated on reforming disaster management approaches. The endorsement of the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience through the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) represented a fundamental shift in the way Australia thought about disaster management. The move to a resilience-based approach to Australia’s disaster management is recognition that disaster resilience is a shared responsibility for individuals, households, businesses and communities, as well as for governments. The strategy is the first step in a long-term, evolving process to deliver sustained behavioural change and enduring partnerships.

Since the strategy was introduced, the Attorney-General’s Department has been tasked with monitoring and guiding the implementation at the federal, state and local levels. The Australia and New Zealand Emergency Management Committee (ANZEMC) has recently commenced reviewing the key successes and challenges that all levels of government and non-government stakeholders have faced in implementing the strategy. This paper will look at the key findings of this review and possible future key priorities for implementation.

This paper addresses the core conference topic ‘Building Community and Disaster Resilience’, drawing attention to the issues considered by UN members as the key drivers and solutions for disaster risk reduction in the future. These include, for example, global risk trends, risk identification and assessment, improving DRR decision-making, the needs of children, rural areas and ecosystems, the role of climate, economics and land-use planning in DRR, and the need to build resilience as well as a more effective response capacity.

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79 Enabling adaptive capacities for disaster resilience in Australia: What role for government policy?

80 PANEL: An Enhanced National Fire Danger Rating System for Australia – where are we now?

Susan A Hunt Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University Canberra, ACT

Chair: Joe Buffone PSM Emergency Management Victoria Melbourne, VIC

Natural disasters will always be a feature of the Australian way of life and governments have developed public policy responses for dealing with loss and damage resulting from disasters. Most recently, government policy has shifted toward an emphasis on disaster resilience and all Australian governments adopted the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience (NSDR) in early 2011.

The NSDR offered a new paradigm that called on all sectors of the community to adopt resilience-based behaviours in the face of the inevitability of natural disasters. We were encouraged to become more self-reliant and disaster policy would focus more on disaster preparation, prevention and mitigation rather than on relief and recovery. Knowledge and awareness of risks and sharing responsibility to reduce risks has become the new mantra of government policy under the NSDR. While there appears to be a general consensus on the types of high-level policies that are needed to build disaster resilience, there are gaps in our knowledge about how to operationalise disaster-resilience policy to achieve these ideals.

This paper proposes a concept for a disaster-resilience policyimplementation framework that can be applied in a multilevel governance system. Four adaptive capacities identified

by Norris et al (2008) provide the theoretical basis for the framework. Theoretical and empirical evidence drawn from policy implementation studies and evaluations of national strategic policies in Australia also provide data relevant to policy implementation in a multi-level governance system, i.e. the Australian Federation. Application of the framework to the analysis of case studies of a number of major activities being implemented under the NSDR at national, sub-national and local government levels and in the business sector will test its potential utility and provide information about the effectiveness of the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience.

Liam Fogarty Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning Melbourne, VIC Simon Heemstra NSW Rural Fire Service Granville, NSW John Bally Bureau of Meteorology Docklands, VIC Michael Rumsewicz Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC East Melbourne, VIC In July 2014, all state and territory governments, and the Commonwealth, agreed that a new National Fire Danger Rating System is a national priority. Phase 1 work has begun on • a national statement of functional requirements, • the identification of scientific readiness and gaps, • a map to manage the system, and • indicative costs for a new Australian system.

The intention of a new system is to incorporate contemporary science that more accurately predicts bushfire risk. This includes factors for fire weather, fuel condition, ignition likelihood, fire behaviour, fire suppression and fire impact. The Phase I project is being funded through the National Emergency Management Projects (NEMP) grants program.

This panel session will update the sector on progress of the Phase 1 project and planned activity being undertaken to develop a new Fire Danger Ratings System for Australia.

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CONFERENCE DAY TWO (CONT)

81 The Sydney 2014 forecast demonstration project: A step from research to operations

82 Developing enterprise opportunities and resilience in remote north Australian communities

Michael Foley, Jeff Kepert and James Sofra Bureau of Meteorology Melbourne, VIC

Kamaljit Sangha, Jeremy Russell-Smith, Andrew Edwards, Cameron Yates and Jackie Gould Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Darwin Centre for Bushfire Research Darwin, NT

Mika Peace SARO, Bureau of Meteorology Adelaide, SA Deryn Griffiths Bureau of Meteorology Sydney, NSW Forecast demonstration projects (FDPs) have provided valuable opportunities to expose recent research outcomes in a nearoperational setting. Operational forecasters and researchers work together each day over a period of weeks or months to trial new techniques and technologies in real-time forecasting situations. Researchers and new systems become better attuned to operational realities, and forecasters have an early look at, and chance to shape, tools that they will be using in the future.

The Sydney 2014 FDP was conducted by the Bureau of Meteorology as a test bed for improvements to the underlying science for extreme weather forecasting. A centrepiece of the new techniques was a Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) numerical weather prediction (NWP) model, which issued a new forecast every hour, incorporating the latest weather observations much more frequently than traditional NWP models that update every 6 or 12 hours. It was run at 1.5-kilometre horizontal resolution, significantly finer than current operational predictions.

NWP models are crucial to forecasting natural hazards such as dangerous fire weather conditions. They provide input to the Graphical Forecast Editor, which is used to provide gridded and text forecast services including fire weather products. We will describe how RUC guidance was incorporated into the Graphical Forecast Editor, how forecasters managed the increased volume of information and how they applied the extra spatial resolution of the RUC guidance to spot fire forecasts.

Christine Michael Darwin Centre for Bushfire Research Darwin, NT Glen James Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance Darwin, NT It is well recognised that local and indigenous communities face significant development challenges in remote regions of northern Australia. In this paper we contend that development of enterprise opportunities, especially through the fostering of land and sea management activities under culturally appropriate governance arrangements, can contribute substantially to the building of regional economies and community resilience with associated benefits for natural hazards management. We focus on recent experience with landscape fire management initiatives established as part of Australia’s developing commitment to tackling climate change, and suggest that additional innovative incentives are available to help transform northern regional economies. In particular, we outline the case for promoting a range of economic benefits from CO2-e emissions abatement that can be a source of income for indigenous people and can improve savanna landscape values, thus supporting local and indigenous communities as well as government programs for developing healthy landscapes for healthy people.

The past decade of research into meteorology surrounding bushfires has many learning’s which are yet to be formally incorporated into operational fire weather forecasts and services.

Studies have shown the importance of the structure of the atmosphere in three dimensions and the dynamical interactions between the fire, atmosphere and terrain. Through forecast demonstration projects, researchers and operational practitioners can take up the challenge of transitioning such research outcomes into the operational sphere.

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83 Protecting remote community assets from the adverse impact of bushfires through increased resilience and sharing responsibilities Trevor Tasker, Ralph Smith Department of Fire and Emergency Services, WA Perth, WA Within Western Australia there are a growing number of remote communities within a very wide range of complex ecosystems and rainfall zones. There are hundreds of remote aboriginal communities, many remote mine camps, small towns and hundreds of pastoral stations. All of these community assets are isolated and many are vulnerable to unplanned bushfire events which, if they occur, can have catastrophic consequences. A further level of complexity is the geographic and climatic range that these communities are located within. Many of the community assets are located where the fire predictive tools are required to be interpreted rather than applied in accordance with specifically designed inputs for that particular vegetation type, structure and weather. This community protective work is undertaken within the constraints of the very strong environmental protection legislation and following the ISO 31000 risk management principles and guidelines. In some instances the community protection requirements lead to a direct conflict with the environmental protection legislation.

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services, WA (DFES) is working with many of these communities to enhance their protection and increase their resilience. The development of true symbiotic partnerships has demonstrated an exponential benefit to all participants. The bushfire protection in these areas requires specialist skills as these areas have vegetation with no specific, fuel-accumulation rate, no specific, appropriate, fire-spread model and limited accurate, historic, fire-weather data and a high-value community that is potentially at risk from a bushfire attack.

84 Fire stories from country Peta O’Donohue and Bluey Devine SA Country Fire Service Adelaide, SA The Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands are located in the far north-west of South Australia, running up to the borders of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. To get there from Adelaide, you need to drive more than 1070 kilometres north to Marla, then onto unsealed roads for hours to reach the scattered remote communities. The total population is about 2500, with the largest towns (300 to 350 residents) being Indulkana, Pukatja (Ernabella), Amata and Mimili. About 84.5% of the APY population is indigenous as compared to 2.3% of the total South Australian population (ABS, 2012).

In the past there has been very limited capacity in the APY Lands to prepare and respond to fires that have threatened homes and communities. However, in recent times, the SA Country Fire Service (CFS) has made a significant investment in building capacity in remote APY communities to prepare and respond to building fire and bushfire. This is being achieved through local liaison, training and equipment, which is targeted and suited to local culture and environments and quite different to the fire agency’s traditional approach.

This session will feature local stories from some of South Australia’s most remote fire brigades, in their own words. Region 4 CFS Regional Commander, Bluey Devine, will introduce the session, describing the successes and challenges of setting up and supporting these remote volunteer fire brigades. APY volunteers will then tell stories about their brigades and experiences from their perspective.

This paper will describe the partnerships between DFES and pastoralists on the Nullarbor, pastoralists in the Kimberley and two isolated mine camps. The paper will discuss the methodology to create a more resilient isolated community and the shared responsibility associated with the creation of a holistic approach to bushfire management where community protection may be in conflict with maintenance of biodiversity.

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CONFERENCE DAY TWO (CONT)

85 What do we do to enable our most junior to lead?

Matt Heysmand NSW Police Force Parramatta, NSW In emergency service organisations the term ‘leadership’ is often used and referred to. Senior members of the various organisations are expected to provide leadership, particularly in times of crisis or during emergencies. During major incidents such as bushfires, floods and high-risk incidents, there is an expectation leadership will be provided by the more senior members to the more junior, who are generally the first responders or on the frontline.

This presentation will attempt to provide a differing perspective on the leadership provided by emergency organisations and highlight the importance of the leadership provided by the frontline, the first responders to the community.

When a major incident occurs, be it natural disaster or man-made, our frontline officers are the first responders and immediately looked to by the community. Most often this community is needing and wanting someone to take control and provide leadership. Generally speaking, this leadership role of our most junior will continue throughout the response phase. While the more senior among us are leading our own people from command posts and operation centres, the community are working with our most junior and will continue to look to them for leadership.

Via case studies and discussion, we will explore methods by which organisations can assist their more junior staff to develop leadership skills and act on those skills. It will be proposed that improvements can be made via use of mentoring programs, formal learning, desktop exercises and development opportunities. Leadership can be developed and via this the professional reputation of any organisation will be enhanced.

Leadership is a skill that, like any skill, can be learnt, developed and improved and requires practice. It is the responsibility of all organisations to provide this development.

86 Engaging youth in emergency services: a shared responsibility Judith Stanley and Deanna Roa United Fire Brigades Association Paekakariki, New Zealand This paper discusses the role of government agencies in the delivery of emergency management training for senior secondary students as a means of advancing a range of social, political and economic goals.

Emergency management training for young people (particularly mid to late-teens) is underfunded and undervalued. Sharing the responsibility is a delivery model which values young people and recognises them as the emerging workforce responsible for responding to the failings of the fossil-fuel economy and a full range of natural disasters.

The three R’s of government (regulations, rules and reporting) support robust processes and systems, which result in most outcomes being robust and aspiring to best practice baselines.

The integrity of the shared-responsibility model is in welldefined functions and roles, understanding expectations, and maintaining accountable records. Shared-responsibility modelling necessitates working with solution-focused people and showing decision makers how emergency response training can meet specific departmental outcomes by providing evidence of success.

Emergency management training is uniquely placed to meet a wide range of policy outcomes as defined by reporting metrics and success criteria across government agencies.

People between 15-19 years old are among the most accidentprone risk-takers in our communities and workplaces; providing them with an opportunity to participate in a learning pathway that contextualises emergency response and leadership skills is a future-focused and immediate means of developing resilient populations. The United Fire Brigades Association’s partnership with government agencies, emergency sector organisations and schools in New Zealand is a starting point in defining an effective youth-centred engagement strategy while also meeting several government policy priorities (including education, accident prevention, mental health, volunteer workforce sustainability, safer workplaces, community resilience and capability).

Sharing the responsibility is a work in progress. This paper attempts to define the social, political and economic variables associated with engaging youth in emergency services training.

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87 Engaging and empowering the future: The role and importance of engaging and empowering young people with a voice as volunteers in the EM sector.

Ruth Tovo, Kirstie McGarrity, Stewart Germaine and Scott Kennedy Youth Advisory Committee Country Fire Service Adelaide, SA Empowering the future discusses in brief how the SA Country Fire Service (CFS) has identified the importance of engaging with its young members, to ensure that the organisation becomes a service that is adept to the current and changing requirements and needs of the volunteer workforce within the emergency management sector.

The CFS Youth Advisory Council (YAC) is a mix of young volunteers aged between 16 to 30 from across South Australia who share a passion for volunteering within the emergency services. The YAC plays a pivotal role in promoting youth and the benefits of young volunteers within the CFS, as well as providing youth with a positive strategic voice in higher level decision-making processes.

The presentation will explore and discuss the background to the development and operation of the YAC, learning’s and the role it has played in representing the interest of young people within a volunteer organisation now and into the future.

Change is in the air for the South Australian emergency services sector. This is an opportune time for individuals and young people like the YAC to positively contribute to the future development and operation of the emergency services sector within the state and the nation. Ideally participants will feel empowered to consider the importance of actively engaging with their organisation’s young members in order to continue building a resilient and diverse future emergency service across the AFAC-representative states and territories.

Presenters will comprise of current young members from the YAC, including first-term serving members and members who assisted in the formation of the council in 2008.

88 Veterinary emergency management at the Sampson Flat bushfire in South Australia, January 2015 Rachel Westcott SAVEM Inc. Bridgewater, SA The Sampson Flat fire in early January 2015 was the largest bushfire in South Australia in 30 years. Fire scar was approximately 12,500 hectares, with a 220-kilometre perimeter. Small, semi-rural communities at Humbug Scrub, One Tree Hill, Upper and Lower Hermitage, Cudlee Creek, Inglewood, Kersbrook, and Gumeracha were affected.

The South Australian State Emergency Management Plan comprises functional services and participating agencies (1).

South Australian Veterinary Emergency Management (SAVEM) is a participating agency under Primary Industries and Regions SA (PIRSA), which leads the Agriculture and Animal Services Functional Service. SAVEM is a 100% volunteer organisation of veterinarians, veterinary nurses, wildlife carers and others with specialist skills, and trains to the Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System (AIIMS). SAVEM’s role is animal assessment, retrieval, triage and treatment. Access to the fire-ground depends upon permission from the Control Agency (Country Fire Service) and PIRSA’s Chief Veterinary Officer.

During a six-week activation at Sampson Flat, SAVEM rostered 70 volunteers through its triage centre, set up for 14 days in the Kersbrook Football Club, and thereafter in daily field teams. Over 750 calls to assess in excess of 1000 animals of all species resulted.

Pre-season planning with other participating agencies, meant that the RSPCA joined SAVEM’s field teams and the Animal Welfare League added logistical support. Veterinary wholesaler ProVet SA, Fauna Rescue, Wireless Institute Civil Emergency Network and Conservation and Wildlife Management (SA) Inc all contributed resources.

Animals treated and stabilised in the triage centre were discharged to veterinary hospitals outside the fire-ground; those in the field with hopeless prognosis were humanely euthanised. This experience adds to SAVEM’s six years in the sector. Routine After Action Reviews identify where ongoing improvement will enhance continued effective response.

1. GOVERNMENT OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA, 2014. State Emergency Management Plan, Department of Emergency Services, Adelaide: Government of SA.

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CONFERENCE DAY TWO (CONT)

89 Rising from the rubble: The critical role of GIS technology in the 2015 SA fires

90 Electronic tablets in the field: Technology transforming door-to-door operations

Gary Maguire Department for Communities & Social Inclusion Adelaide, SA

Howard Colvin Australian Red Cross Mowbray, TAS

During the 2015 South Australian fires, the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion (DCSI) leveraged the latest advancements in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to strengthen mitigation, response and recovery efforts. In essence, GIS technology was crucial in ensuring critical intelligence was delivered to decision makers at a time when bushfire-affected communities were at their most vulnerable.

Dawn Hendrick Australian Red Cross Mowbray, TAS DH Geodata Services Hobart, TAS

Using GIS technology, DCSI was able to rapidly digest and consolidate multiple datasets within hours of the start of the fires, to create a multi-agency smart map. The map integrated large volumes of information – such as crowd-sourced data, government datasets and near real-time fire information – to provide the State Recovery Committee (SRO) with a much-needed ‘single point of truth’. This rich portal of information, accessible from any device, anywhere, provided stakeholders with the intelligence needed to make timely and accurate decisions. For example, the SRO could understand the community tapestry across the affected area, who had lost property, where these affected families registered for assistance, and, as a result, allowing each stakeholder of the SRO to allocate resources as required. DCSI also shared online maps with the broader community that revealed the location of volunteers ready to help post fires, as well as the growing footprint of the bushfire.

As the recovery efforts continue today, the technology is being used to provide new insight into areas in need of ongoing support.

DCSI is advancing the use of GIS in the development of a fully integrated, rapid damage assessment (RDA) tool, due to be released at the beginning of the next fire season.

In this presentation, DCSI will share its experiences, learning’s and the journey they have taken to break down the silos and provide information in a global context to facilitate a more timely coordinated approach to emergency management.

Red Cross has found that electronic tablets offer significant efficiency and effectiveness gains in coordinating door-to-door emergency service activities and streamlining data capture and management.

Traditional Red Cross field operations have been based on the use of hard copy maps and briefings with paper forms used to record relief and recovery information. While a reliable approach, doorto-door visitation rates were limited by data recording timeframes, the reliable identification of properties was difficult and the high level of data transcribing was inefficient and added accuracy risks.

Through 2014, Red Cross trialed the use of tablets for post-fire relief and recovery efforts in Tasmania, NSW and South Australia.

These trials utilised the Fulcrum application – a user-customisable tablet and smart phone solution already proven by American Red Cross for post disaster operations.

Benefits observed in the trials included: • Simpler briefings, including the ability to specify individual properties for visitation • Easier and consistent recording of property locations, using the GPS capability to auto record property coordinates • Simpler data recording in the field, with user-designed forms allowing for check-button or multiple-choice recording with integral data-validation. The proportion of resource-intensive, user-composed records is subsequently also reduced • Live Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) monitoring of field crew locations reducing work health and safety risks • Direct downloading of recorded data from the field into EOC information management systems • A significantly improved deployment experience for field personnel; particularly important when dealing with volunteer workforces.

91 Psychological wellbeing takes focus in CFA

92 Fit for duty: Fitness of firefighters

Evan Townsend and Tanya Di Michele Country Fire Authority Burwood East, VIC

Stephen Glassock, David Heslop and Sheryl Navin NSW Rural Fire Service Lidcombe, NSW

In emergency services, a psychologically healthy and safe environment directly contributes to member wellbeing and resilience. Conversely, the inappropriate management of potentially traumatic events, bullying, harassment, and discrimination, interpersonal conflict, mental illness (e.g. depression, anxiety, substance use and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and mental health problems (loss of motivation, irritability, sadness and anxiety) directly contributes to member distress and reduced wellbeing and resilience.

During 2013 and early 2014, the NSW Rural Fire Service (NSWRFS) was subject to a Performance Audit by the NSW AuditorGeneral. The focus of this audit was whether NSWRFS volunteer firefighters were fit for duty. The audit resulted in a report that was tabled to the NSW Parliament. The report included a number of recommendations related to the fitness of NSWRFS volunteer firefighters that the NSWRFS is currently implementing.

Moderate to severe psychological distress directly influences the day-to-day functioning of a brigade and psychological wellbeing of members affected. This, in turn, impacts on brigade viability, requiring significant time and effort to manage and resolve.

In 2012, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) board signed off on its health, safety and environment strategy, which included a strong focus on psychological health and safety with the aim of developing a culture in which psychological health and safety is given as much attention as physical health and safety in all areas of CFA. To achieve this, CFA has implemented initiatives focusing on psychological wellbeing and mental health with the aim of not only enhancing existing support services (Peer Support Program, Member Assistance Program, and Chaplaincy Program) but improving CFA’s overall capacity to support its volunteers and employees.

These include but are not limited to: • Research on disaster affected communities • Revised Member Assistance Program – including skills for psychological recovery service • Mental health online toolkit • Field-Based Psychological Wellbeing Pilot

This presentation will outline the background to the Performance Audit, including defining ‘fitness’ as used in the context of the audit, how the audit was undertaken and who was involved. It will then focus on the recommendations made in the audit report, which note that the NSWRFS should by April 2015: 1. Undertake a risk analysis on the current approach to managing the health and fitness of volunteer members, particularly those who actively fight fires 2. Introduce health and fitness initiatives to encourage volunteer firefighters to maintain their fitness 3. Establish a checklist to assist brigade captains in managing the health and fitness of their members 4. Consider a three-year renewal of self-assessment and declaration of medical condition by volunteers.

The presentation will then address how the NSWRFS is implementing these recommendations through the work being led by the NSWRFS’ Health Safety and Welfare Section. It will conclude by providing a current update on the progress of the implementation of the recommendations and highlight activities that other agencies may wish to consider for applicability to their individual agency.

By providing a range of specialist programs, services and advice, CFA has been able to deliver tailored solutions at a local level to meet specific needs. CFA is already experiencing the benefits of these initiatives by not only meeting legislative requirements to reduce psychological health and safety risks but also by increasing overall organisational capacity to manage psychological wellbeing and reduce the impacts on the psychological health and safety of its members.

While initiated to support relief and recovery operations, this approach would also appear to be highly relevant for pre-event defendability mapping. For example, it would enable rural fire brigades to easily map and upload the status of individual properties in their area, with that information then accessible to planning and operations to guide the allocation of resources during a fire response.

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CONFERENCE DAY TWO (CONT)

93 SAMFS road awareness program: Lessons learned from a decade of road awareness education Glenn Benham and Rodney Campbell SA Metropolitan Fire Service Adelaide, SA The South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) Road Awareness Program (RAP) educates driving licence-aged students in secondary schools across South Australia. The program targets individuals in the 16-24 age bracket, who account for approximately 27% of those killed or injured on the roads each year. The RAP is delivered free of charge by MFS firefighters.

Key components of the program include: • A presentation of the risks associated with road accident • Testimony by road crash survivors who share their experiences with the students, • Presenting attendees with concrete strategies to avoid high-risk situations • An educational package that includes a Parent-Young Person Safe Driver Agreement.

The program has achieved a steady growth in demand since its inception. Early growth was driven by recommendations (including word-of-mouth) from schools. The program now has a 100% return business rate. Since 2010 the MFS has actively sought data concerning program outcomes including links to changes in road accidents, changed attitudes towards road use after program attendance, as well as evaluations of program quality and appropriateness.

The combination of user satisfaction and data evaluation have been important factors in securing additional funding for the RAP that has expanded the number of sessions delivered each year.

Although much of this funding has been provided by the South Australian Government, increasingly, funding has been provided by private corporations that have proactively requested involvement.

As a result of this support, the program was further expanded in 2014 to include parents of attendees and is now being sought for a number of national sporting bodies and corporations.

This presentation will provide an overview of the RAP and lessons learned by the MFS that have facilitated the success and expansion of the program over the past decade.

94 Teacher-led fire safety in schools Karen M Enbom, Gwynne Brennan and Matthew Henry Country Fire Authority Burwood East, VIC Teaching young people about disaster and emergency planning has both immediate and longer-term benefits, indicated through research across both the emergency management and teaching sectors. Traditionally, emergency management agencies have taken a lead role in the development and delivery of programs for students. While the Country Fire Authority (CFA) provides comprehensive fire safety programs in schools, it is difficult to service every student in every school, as Victoria’s volunteer brigades grapple with issues around sustainability, recruitment, availability of volunteers during business hours, and increasing community needs. And while schools are generally willing and capable of delivering safety programs to their students, there has been a lack of available support and materials for home and bushfire safety, aligned with foundational Australian Curriculum in Victoria, available to teachers.

CFA recently conducted a program of engagement with teachers in selected high- bushfire-risk areas, which highlighted the need for more curriculum-based, lesson-planning material and support. A considerable amount of negotiation occurred with school principals and teaching staff, which ultimately led to a pilot program for teacher-delivered fire safety education being undertaken in 2014.

The project sought to explore the gaps in CFA’s existing schools program-delivery model and aimed to provide tools and support to teachers, enhancing their ability and capacity to deliver firesafety education to their students, thereby increasing the number of children who receive opportunities to learn about home and bushfire safety. Consequently, the project evaluation showed a significant increase in both teacher and student participation in fire-safety education and emergency planning.

CFA is now exploring ways to expand on this model of shared responsibility for delivery of safety education into schools, by incorporating into it other hazards and engaging other subject matter experts. The vision is to make this work available to the Victorian schools sector and beyond.

95 Chair: Grant Pelton Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, SA Keswick, SA Jeffrey P Newman Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC The University of Adelaide Adelaide, SA Edward Pikusa and Liz Connell SA Fire and Emergency Services Commission Adelaide, SA

Session One: Building resilience in South Australia: A better understanding of risk Jeffrey P Newman Many communities experience repeated disruptions from natural disasters, and the effects of these events could be minimised through better risk management, planning and prevention.

However, effective management of disaster risk is reliant on accurate and accessible information about natural hazards. To improve the quality and accessibility of risk information, South Australia has developed the Zone Emergency Risk Management System (ZERMS) Project. Managed by the South Australian Fire and Emergency Services Commission (SAFECOM), the project has addressed multiple hazards across the full prevention, preparedness, response and recovery (PPRR) spectrum. Utilising rigorous risk assessment methodology, the project works collaboratively with key stakeholders to better understand risk and build resilience across the social, economic and environment sectors of our community.

The core aim of the project was to better understand the risks SA communities faced, by conducting risk assessment workshops across 10 hazard types. The ZERMS project team interpreted the National Emergency Risk Assessment Guidelines (NERAG) and developed templates, tools and consistent processes for the workshops. The ZERMS project was the first time the NERAG methodology was rigorously applied in Australia. The team has since shared this knowledge and tools with other Australian jurisdictions adopting the NERAG methodology.

Stakeholders were invited to workshops. At each workshop between 20 and 30 agencies were represented often contributing to lively discussions and debate. The outputs are included in the Emergency Management Plans. Key benefits from the overall process included that stakeholders have developed: a better understanding of the Zone context and the specific elements at risk in each Zone; the existing controls; the risks arising from different levels of event severity across different types of hazard; and the EM arrangements and capabilities across local and state government agencies and other organisations.

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Session Two: The National Emergency Risk Assessment Guidelines (NERAG): The bumpy road to national consistency Edward Pikusa Since 2010, there has been a national version of the international risk management guidelines published for assessing risk of natural disasters, known as NERAG. The NERAG has been described in a key recommendation of the draft report from the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Natural Disaster Funding as a consistent means of assessing disaster mitigation proposals. NERAG assessments are proposed as a means of prioritising strategic investments into risk reducing mitigation. States and territories have been encouraged to take up these guidelines as a means of consistently assessing risks of emergencies, with mixed results. Some states have embraced NERAG risk assessments at state and regional levels and published the results, while others have been reticent to undertake such work. When endorsed in 2010, there was also national agreement to review the NERAG after three years. The process was originally meant to take around six months, but is only concluding now after more than two years. This paper describes the reviewed NERAG, its refinements, and its associated products to encourage greater and more consistent adoption. It is also an interesting case study of the difficult process many of us go through to achieve nationally agreed consistency in our policies and practices.

Session Three: A framework for an integrated model that supports multi-hazard mitigation planning Liz Connell Hazard mitigation planning is multi-faceted. First, plans should be holistic, considering a number of community goals in addition to risk management. Second, plans should guide development over the long term, and need to consider how the frequency, magnitude and consequences of hazards change over time. To assess future changes, a large number of environmental and anthropogenic factors that affect hazard risk need to be estimated, yet strong uncertainty exists in estimating these factors. Third, implemented plans have a wide social, environmental and economic impact; impacts across these systems need to be assessed. Finally, resources for mitigation are limited; benefits of mitigation need to be clear to make a business case to decision makers and the public. Due to these facets, decisionsupport systems (DSS) are invaluable when planning mitigation.

This paper presents an integrated model for mitigation planning.

To assess the impact of mitigation options across the wider social, economic and environmental system, the proposed DSS integrates flood, bushfire, earthquake, and coastal surge risk models with social, natural and build environment models. The integrated model is used to estimate the values of multiple decision criteria, to enable holistic planning. Criteria estimated by the DSS include hazard, vulnerability, risk, cost benefit analysis and other social and environmental variables. To understand how these criteria change over the long term, models of climate, demographics and economic change are used. To enable the spatial assessment of the criteria, a land-use model is used, which also allows the consideration of spatial planning and land management mitigation options, in addition to structural and educational measures. Finally, the integrated model is linked with optimisation, which is designed to screen through planning options, and, hence, discover innovative sets of policy options.

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CONFERENCE DAY TWO (CONT)

96 A fire information management system to support changing practices

97 Development and testing of the NSWRFS prescribed burn forecast tool

98 The Tasmania Fire Service knowledge management project: Harnessing our experiences

99 Information and communication system for Fire & Rescue NSW Community Fire Units

Simeon D Telfer Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources Keswick, SA

Simon Heemstra, Laurence McCoy and Stuart Matthews NSW Rural Fire Service Lidcombe, NSW

Nicholas Wilson Tasmania Fire Service Hobart, TAS

Samantha Colwell and John Simonides Fire & Rescue NSW, Harris Park, NSW

Changes in both the way prescribed burning is conducted and the environment of the fire-management business have led to the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resource, SA (DEWNR) developing the Fire Information Management System (FIMS) to meet current and future business needs. FIMS is a browser-based system which provides functionality to assist in planning and implementing the prescribed burn program rather than just reporting on it. It provides a consistent approach to environmental assessment, operational planning and risk assessment of prescribed burns across South Australia.

Matt Plucinski CSIRO Sydney, NSW

Emergency services across Australia have an enviable reputation for pursuing a high level of professional mastery. Indeed, it is this quality among others that results in fire and ambulance services, together with other emergency management partners, routinely being voted the country’s most trusted profession(s). Yet in today’s environment, achieving and maintaining contemporary and relevant expertise is not a simple task.

In order to build capability in the bushfire urban interface, Fire & Rescue NSW (FRNSW) established a Community Fire Unit (CFU) program 21 years ago following the devastating 1994 bushfires.

The program grew rapidly and now has over 600 units and 7000 volunteers across NSW. This success has also introduced some growing pains, especially with communicating to a geographically and demographically diverse volunteer workforce.

Training, competency maintenance, personnel retention and many other stressors play a critical part in influencing an agency’s success criteria. Historically, these areas have been mitigated through a narrow and deep investment in experience; where the membership of an agency by a practitioner will span an entire career. However, as the environment rapidly changes, so does the workforce and the mediums in which it communicates. It follows that ‘traditional’ methods of knowledge maintenance – word-ofmouth instruction, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and a relatively small policy basis – are no longer sufficient. As agencies embark on an endless quest for information and compliance, it is clear that a new approach to knowledge management is needed.

And in March 2014, the Tasmania Fire Service (TFS) commenced this journey accordingly.

A report commissioned by FRNSW and undertaken by the Bushfire CRC into CFU activity during October 2013 bushfires in the Blue Mountains specifically identified deficiencies with the way that FRNSW communicates with the volunteer workforce, especially during emergencies. It is critical that FRNSW can ensure the volunteers receive accurate and timely information about fires in their area and manage exposure to different hazards. An options analysis identified that an integrated information and communications system specific to the needs of the CFU was the most appropriate approach. Such a system was able to establish these critical capabilities without introducing a significant ongoing management overhead.

Key outcomes that FIMS is now providing to the Fire Management Program in DEWNR include: • Improved adherence to fire management policies and procedures • Consistent and current recording, reporting, reviewing and updating of information on prescribed burns • A single source of truth for burn planning documents and utilisation of authoritative corporate datasets • Improved data sharing of statistics and reports to be available to users that are internal and external to DEWNR (e.g. SA Country Fire Services, webpages, internal reporting) • Provides a system to assess, record and manage environmental assessments for planning prescribed burns • Provides a system to plan, manage and control the operational implementation of the prescribed burn program • Provides an overview of the Prescribed Burn program progress.

This presentation outlines the environmental assessment and burn-planning component of FIMS, an aspect of prescribed burn planning that takes considerable time and effort in South Australia.

The overall functionality of FIMS is demonstrated and evaluated.

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Simon Lewis Bureau of Meteorology Sydney, NSW Prescribed burning is a delicate and frequently frustrating art, requiring identification of often narrow windows of suitable weather to conduct burns that achieve objectives while remaining within prescription and under control. To assist fire managers to identify burning opportunities, the NSW Rural Fire Service (NSWRFS) has developed the prescribed burn forecast tool (PBFT), in collaboration with NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.

The tool has a modular structure to allow for continuous improvement of model components while maintaining consistent outputs and interface: 1. 6x6 kilometre gridded weather forecast data from the Bureau of Meteorology’s Australian Digital Forecast Database, and gridded rainfall observation 2. A process-based, fine fuel moisture model used to predict surface moisture content and fuel availability 3. A fire-behaviour model, based on McArthur’s prescribed burning guide 4. A burn-suitability model that uses outputs from 1-3 to rate the suitability for burning of each grid cell at three-hour time steps for the four-day outlook.

The outputs of the PBFT are displayed in the NSWRFS Fire Weather Portal (FWP). The FWP allows users to view PBFT outputs as maps overlaid on scheduled burns and raster backgrounds at individual times or as an animation. The PBFT was built using the best available science but nevertheless required judgements about definitions of suitable burning conditions. To better understand the performance of the tool in practice and validate the model components, CSIRO has compared predictions from the PBFT with observations from prescribed burns conducted in NSW in 2013 and 2014. This presentation will demonstrate the operation of the PBFT and present the results of the validation study.

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The TFS Knowledge Management Project consists of two distinct but mutually supporting parts. Firstly, the TFS Policy Framework exists to incorporate agency policies, administrative and governance documents applicable to the entire workforce.

Alternatively, the TFS Doctrine Model maintains the purely operational methods, procedures and guidelines. Collectively, these systems deliver a synchronised, contemporary reference library where best-practice knowledge management principles are utilised.

Throughout 2014/15, the TFS doctrine project was identified as the main effort. In the TFS context, doctrine is a term applied to operational methods and procedures – e.g. those documents traditionally referred to as standard operating procedures, standard operating guidelines and/or operational instructions.

The key features of the new Information and Communication System include the ability to two-way communicate with CFUs, especially regarding events nearby, display intelligence information, crew accountability; and the integration with other emergency management systems for enhanced situational awareness by incident managers into CFU activity.

This presentation will: • Demonstrate key capabilities of the system • Discuss how contemporary commoditised technologies (e.g. mobile applications and cloud services) were used in delivering the capability at a low cost • Discuss significant project aspects including the challenges faced by the volunteers and FRNSW’s CFU management team • Discuss the business benefits the system is expected to deliver.

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CONFERENCE DAY TWO (CONT)

ABSTRACT INDEX BY AUTHOR

100 Generation next - changing the future for emergency management

A

Chair: Tam Hoang, Youth Beyond Disaster Lauren Wait SA Country Fire Service Adelaide, SA Ryan Hoult University of Melbourne Parkville, VIC Tia Rowley Queensland Fire and Emergency Service Brisbane, QLD Gabriele Fuller-Gooley SA Metropolitan Fire Service Adelaide, SA The emergency services workforce is ageing. Younger members are stepping up and taking on new challenges in their careers and volunteering activities.

What are the key issues affecting young members of our industry?

How have sessions at the conference inspired thinking and a way forward for the younger members of the industry? Where do they see the challenges for agencies into the future?

Together four panelists will explore and reflect on the conference proceedings, discussing issues affecting the next generation of emergency management workers, volunteers and researchers.

Major challenges for the industry in the future will be discussed, with a focus on culture, communication and interoperability.

Panelists will consider the need to communicate academic research better to assist industry practice; improve interoperability and inter-agency communication to deliver better outcomes and build safer communities; and what culture and diversity looks like from a youth perspective. The panel will also reflect on issues that are most relevant to them in their practice.

Abebe, E Allison, L Allison, M Almashor, M Amri, A Anderson, B Anderson, G

E 23 134 35 23 25 115 78

Ebrall, J Edwards, A Edwards, A.C Ehnis, C Ellis, S Enbom, K.M Eustace, G Every, D

80 134 101 102 23 93 46 20 64 18 69 103 12 47 68 24 94 21 12 11

F

B Bally, J Bandini-Maeder, R Beinke, S Belcher, J.C Beloglazov, A Benham, G Berthold, I Bessell, R Best, D Bhattacharya, P Bierman, P Bird, D Block, K Bloss, C Boissonneault, P Boruff, B Brennan, G Brown, T Bryant, R Bunker, D

C Calder, E.E Campbell, P Campbell, R Cao, Y Carr, S Caruso, P Cary, G.J Chard, S Chen, A Chen, Y Choy, S Clarke, H Coates, L Colvin, H Colwell, S Connell, L Coviello, H Copper, N Cox, B Crockett, A Croft, M Culvenor, D Currie, B

D

113 50 93 24 56 134 109 78 20 18 8 22 45 90 99 95 139 119 39 103 115 109 105

Dandy, G 17 De Waal, L 109 del Monaco, A 57 Delavale, B 72 Dent, A 42,59 Deuchars, L 64 Devine, B 84 Dharssi, I 7 Di Michele, T 91 Dimer de Oliveira, F 74 Doran, E 61 Douglas, G 14 Douglas, R 32 Dowdy, A.J 105 Duckham, M 111 Dufty, N 46 Dunne, B 119 Dunstan, F 49

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Fahy, M Farquhar, S Fawcett, R.J Fearon, M Featherston, G Fernando, S Filmer, J Finney, M Fogarty, L Foley, M Forbes, D Fritz, R.R Fuller, S Fuller-Gooley,G

I 107 82 9 11 59, 71 94 6 3

Ingham, V Inwood, N Ireton, G

44 109 29 21 124,60 55 108 1 80 81 12 113 111 100

K

G Gale, M.J Gallagher, H Galpin, A Garvey, M Germaine, S Gibbs, L Gilbert, L Gill, A.M Gilmour, L Ginger, J Gissing, A Glass, D.C Glassock, S Goldsworthy, H.M Goodchild, R Gould, J Griffiths, D Griggs AM, B Grimaldi, S Gunn, D

109 12 110 111 87 12 34 109 112 37 45 57 92 15 55 82 81 33 27 54

H Hamm, S 53 Handmer, J 5,8 Harms, L 12 Harris, J 54 Harris, P.P 113 Harris, S 21 Hatcher, A 76 Hatori, T 8 Haynes, K 45 He, Y 14 Heemstra, S 80,97 Henderson, A 144,36,59 Henderson, D 37 Hendrick, D 90 Henry, M 94 Heslop, D 92 Hetzel, Y 26 Heysmand, M 85 Higgins, J 59 Hill, D 134 Hillenbrand, T.A 114 Hoang, T 100 Holley, A 122 Hoult, R 100 Hoult, R.D 15 Hunt, S.A 79 Hyde, A 140,46

13 115 12

J James, G Jamieson, D.A Janekovic, I Jones, R.N Jones OAM, R Kalantari, M Kan, F.M Kane, R Karunasena, W Kealy, A Keene, T Kellett, C Kelly, B Kendall, D Kennedy, S Kenny, B Kepert, J Kepert, J.D Key, R Kidnie, S Killalea, D King, J Klemm, D Kohtake, N Koschatzky, V Kuleshov, Y Kumar, V

82 116 26 19 52 18 31 4 16 111 137,138 12 25 117 87 22 81 29 48 20 77 41 72 8 74 106 7

L Lawrence, S Leahy, J Leavesley, A.J Leckie, I Lee, J.W Levine, L Levine, B Lewis, C Lewis, S Li, Y Lokuge, W Lumantarna, E Lusher, D

140 118 109,119 140 119 11 135 55 97 27 16 15 12

M MacDougall, C 12 Mackenzie, I 51 Mackintosh, B 120 Maguire, G 89 Maier, H.R 17 Martin, A 75 Martin, D 109 Mason, A 121 Mason, M 37 Masters, M 115 Matthews, S 97 Mavroyeni, M 140 Mazzucchelli, T 4 McArthur, T 122 McCarthy, M 6 McCoy, L 97 McFadgen, B 141 McGarrity, K 87 McGregor, C 66 McLennan, B 5 McMillan, P 123 McNeill, I 24 McRae, R 124,125,28 McStephen, M 126

Michael, C Miller Rose, P Millington, B Mills, G Minchin, S Morris, E.C Mosconi, D.S Mueller, N Munn-Venn, T Murphy, K

82 127 38 21 70 14 128 119 67 65

N Nairn, J Navin, S Neale, T Newland, C.P Newman, J.P Nichols, D Nugent, D

69 92 10 17 17 20 43

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P Papaioannou, J Parackal, K Pattiaratchi, C Pattison, P Pauwels, V Peace, M Pelton, G Pettit, J Pikusa, E Pillsbury, M Pircher, S Plucinski, M Podnarb, D Potts, K.E Preston, R Pridham, D Pritchard, S Pulford, S

129 37 26 12 27 81 95 140 17,95 129 57 97 21 18 130 131 73 132

R Rae, E 140 Raffel, S 133 Rahman, M 18 Rajabifard, A 18 Rattray, B 137,138,58 Redshaw, S 13 Rees, C 4 Reinbold, H 21 Richards, A 55 Richardson, J 12 Riddell, G.A 17 Roa, D 86 Robinson, N 139 Robinson, S 144,36 Ronan, K 25 Rowley, T 100 Rumsewicz, M 80 Russell-Smith, J 82,9

S Sanders, A Sandford, R Sangha, K Schermer, T Schmidt, P Setunge, S Sharples, J Shinohara, Y Sim, M.R Simonides, J Singh, A Sinnott, V Siqueira, A

134 69 82,9 104 62 16 125,28 8 57 99 65 12 119

Skeffington, P.M Skerman, J Slattery, F Sleigh, T Slijepcevic, A Smith, D Smith, R Snowdon, E Sofra, J Soiland , E Somerville, P.G Stanley, J Steer, K Steffen, L Storrie, J Symons, J

4 102 104 11 20 37 83 12 81 129 74 86 23 135 63 19

T Tanner, I 43 83 Tasker, T Taylor, F 141 134 Taylor, H Taylor, M 6 Telfer, S 101,110,96 Thurston, W 29 Tory, K.J 29 Tovo, R 87 Towers, B 25 Townsend, E 91 Townsing, P 136 Ulubasoglu, M 18

V van Delden, H van den Honert, R vander Hoorn, S Vanhout, R Verlin, A Vij, S

17 103 57 17 78 56

W Wahalathantri, B 16 Wait, L 100,59 Walker, A 137,138,58 Walker, J 27 Wand, J 139 Waters, E 12 Webber, D 140,46 Weir, J 10 Westcott, R 88 White, K 141 Whittaker, J 5,8 Williams, G 142 Willis, P 30 Wilson, F 139 Wilson, N 98 Wouters, M 143 Wright, A 27 Wright, D 20

Y Yates, C Yates, C.P Yebra, M Young, C.K Youssef, D

82 9 109 19 40

Z Zecchin, A.C Zelinsky, A

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POSTER LIST

No.

Title

No.

Title

101

Prescribed burn effectiveness, Bangor Fire January 2014 Stuart Beinke and Simeon Telfer Evacuation Resource Mapping Tools - Aiding Victoria Police Evacuation Procedures and Response in Times of Bushfire Crisis Jem C. Belcher and John Skerman Doing the impossible? Developing a national framework to measure disaster resilience at the municipal level Deanne Bird and Rob van den Honert The lessons learnt from the longitudinal study of lung function in South Australian Metropolitan Fire Fighters Alan Crockett, Tjard Schermer and Flynn Slattery FAST-card Fire ground Accountability System Bryan Currie Climatological aspects of lightning activity in Australia relevant to fire and emergency services Andrew J. Dowdy and Yuri Kuleshov The Role of Technology in Provision of Real-time Information to Support Decision Making During Incidents in Western Australia Jared Ebrall Multi-agency Capability and Capacity Project Jasmine Filmer Understanding Grassland Curing for Fire and Land Management Operations in the Australian Capital Territory Scott Farquhar, Malcolm Gale, Marta Yebra, Danielle Martin, Darius Culvenor, Adam Leavesley, A Malcolm Gill, Geoffrey Cary and Lauren De Waal

128

Working Together - Interoperability: Capes Enhanced Service Delivery Danny S. Mosconi Protection by detection: How early wildfire detection reduces economic, natural and human devastation Jan-Paul Papaioannou, Megan Pillsbury and Eirill Soiland The redi-portal: An innovative Risk Evaluation and Disaster Information Tool-box for Disaster Managers in Queensland Robert Preston What does innovation in Emergency Management look like?

Daniel Pridham SESIIMS – an Information Management solution for SA SES Sara Pulford Advancing Compressed Air Foam Systems for Wildfires / Internal Attack and Combined Aerial Pumper Appliance Shan Raffel The Western Australian State Risk Project – Identifying WA’s priority risks to efficiently allocate resources Andrew Sanders, Heather Taylor, Lisa Allison, Roxane Bandini-Maeder, Peter Caruso and Daniel Hill Why We Need a Sharing Portal for Bushfire Work Health and Safety Representatives Lowell Steffen and Brian Levine

102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127

84

A Multi-Agency Approach to Bushfire Management Planning in SA Aidan Galpin and Simeon Telfer Creating a grassland curing dataset from UAV imagery - operational considerations Mark Garvey, Matt Duckham, Allison Kealy and Simon Fuller The needs of people with chronic conditions in natural disasters Louise Gilmour Connecting and staying connected with at risk communities Paul P. Harris, Elizabeth Calder and Ray Fritz Keeping your In-Service Fire Apparatus Safe and Ready for Emergency Response Thomas A. Hillenbrand Empowering young people to join, having the culture to make them stay Nathan Inwood, Matt Masters, Maddie Croft and Banjo Anderson Land Management Recovery Intervention Post Multiple Short-interval Bushfires: 2013 Harrietville – Alpine Fire Area Daniel A. Jamieson Burnology | Unite, a new concept in incident information management and collaboration Dylan Kendall How a partnership enabled the treatment of bushfire risk on private land managed for conservation Justine Leahy Assessing Planned Burn Severity in Forest and Woodland Using Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) Adam J. Leavesley, Andreia Siqueria, John Lee, Bethany Dunne, Norman Mueller and Neil Cooper The Sustainability of Australian Fire Agencies through Diversity Bronnie Mackintosh Emergency Ready Communities Andrew Mason The Survival of Two Schools in a Major Bushfire Tony McArthur and Alan Holley Guideline for Fire Brigade Intervention Model Aerial Operations in Queensland Peter McMillan A New Perspective on Australia’s Fire Seasons Rick McRae and Gary Featherstone Predicting Blow-Up Fire Events Rick McRae and Jason Sharples Use of local government legislation to enable fuel reduction burning Mike McStephen Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Volunteer Community Educators Peta Miller Rose AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK afac.com.au/conference

129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144

Implementing a shared responsibility approach for bushfire risk management between governments and homeowners Peta Townsing Is body composition or fitness affecting inflammatory responses of firefighters working in the heat?

Anthony Walker, Toby Keene and Ben Rattray Working in the heat increases platelet numbers and may increases the risk of a cardiovascular event for up to 24-hours Anthony Walker, Toby Keene and Ben Rattray Reducing risk of bushfire to Leadbeater’s Possum: Using latest research and bushfire modelling to inform planned burning Joanna Wand, Frazer Wilson, Natasha Robinson and Hayley Coviello The River Less Travelled: Reliance towards resilience - Involving community in the planning process David Webber, Elspeth Rae, Ian Leckie, Steven Lawrence, Amanda Hyde, Michelle Mavroyeni and Janet Pettit Coherent Community Education Strategy Kate White, Ben McFadgen and Frances Taylor Are we preventing prevention?

Gary Williams Assessing Environmental Impacts of Burning – EPBC Strategic Assessment in SA Mike Wouters Bring Your Lipstick Sandra Robinson and Ariana Henderson

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AFAC POSTER LIST

BUSHFIRE AND NATURAL HAZARDS CRC POSTER LIST (CONT)

No.

Title

No.

Title

201

2014 Motorola Knowledge Innovation Agency Award – New Zealand Fire Service

314

202

2014 Motorola Knowledge Innovation Agency Award – Country Fire Authority, VIC

Economics of natural hazards: valuing intangibles F. Gibson, D. Pannell

203

2014 Motorola Knowledge Innovation Individual Award – Richard Host, Fire & Rescue NSW

315

204

National Review of Warnings and Information

Economic analysis of prescribed burning for wildfire management in the south east of Western Australia V. Florec, D. Pannell, M. Burton, J. Kelso, G. Milne

205

The Diversity Model

316

Business and economics exposure information framework M. Sofi, A. Rajabifard, M. Kalantari Soltanieh

206

National Burning Project heats up risk management

317

207

Australian Bushfire Fuel Classification

Flood damage assessment in urban areas R. Hasanzadeh Nafari, T. Ngo

208

Fire Brigade Intervention Model

318

209

Your pathway to becoming a certified practitioner: you have the experience, now earn the credential

210

Bushfire Predictive Services - Next steps?

An evidence-based practice framework for children’s disaster education B. Towers, K. Ronan, E. Alisic, S. Davie, J. Handmer, K. Haynes, N. Ireland, M. Petal, A. Amri, B. Kelly, B. Martin, M. Rashid, B. McFadgen, B. Stevenson, B. Doran-Higgins, B. Greimel, C. Walsh, F. Dunstan, F. Jemmett, F. Tonkin, G. Mennie, G. Brennan, L. Addison, M. Henry, P. O’Donohue, J. Richardson, R. Purcell, S. Barber, T. Jarrett, T. Leotta

211

A good yarn or a great case?

319

212

Want to learn how to conduct a successful debrief?

Risk reduction & resilience education: Recommendations for scaling up (views from Indonesia) A Amri, D. Bird, K. Ronan, K. Haynes, B. Towers

213

Need help in making decisions under pressure?

320

214

Interested in developing a simulation?

215

AIIMS-4 Principles Online Course

Children and youth in disasters: A co-produced program of research K. Ronan, B. Towers, E. Alisic, S. Davie, J. Handmer, K. Haynes, N. Ireland, M. Petal, A. Amri, B. Kelly, B. Martin, M. Rashid, B. McFadgen, B. Stevenson, B. Doran-Higgins, B. Greimel, C. Walsh, F. Dunstan, F. Jemmett, F. Tonkin, G. Mennie, G. Brennan, L. Addison, M. Henry, P. O’Donohue, J. Richardson, R. Purcell, S. Barber, T. Jarrett, T. Leotta

216

The AIIMS-4 App

321

Child-centred disaster risk reduction: Achievements, challenges and scope M. Rashid, B. Towers, K. Ronan

322

Community understanding of the tsunami risk and warnings systems in Australian communities D. Paton, D. Johnston, K. Rossiter, P. Buergell

323

Social media: The difference between public expectation and the ability to blame at law when expectations are not met?

M. Baker-Jones

324

Building resilient communities: Creating effective multi-channel communication during disaster response and recovery V. Tippett, D. Greer, A. Mehta, S. Christensen, B. Duncan, A. Stickley, P. Dootson

325

Managing animals in disasters (MAiD): Improving preparedness, response, and resilience through individual and organisational collaboration M. Taylor, M. McCarthy, P. Burns, K. Thompson, G.Eustace

326

The interactions between emergency responders and animal owners in bushfire: Improving community preparedness and response outcomes R. Westcott, M. Taylor, K. Ronan

327

How risk informs emergency management: A study of the interface between risk modelling for tsunami inundation and emergency management policies and procedures M. Crawford, D. Johnston, E. Hudson-Doyle, G. Leonard

BUSHFIRE AND NATURAL HAZARDS CRC POSTER LIST No.

Title

301

Is ‘resilience’ the same as ‘adaptation’?

C. Wenger

302

Implementing policy for enabling disaster resilience: making it happen in a federal system S. Hunt

303

Insuring against disasters: Minimising perverse incentives and promoting mitigation V. Sundar, M. Eburn, H. Hussey

304

We have not lived enough: Making sense and learning from bushfire in Australia G. Dwyer

328

305

Navigating scientific uncertainty in bushfire and flood risk mitigation T. Neale, J. Weir

Does the use of information sources lead to better hazard preparedness?

I. Mcneill, J. Boldero, E. Mcintosh

329

306

Would you drive through flood water?

A. Gissing, K. Haynes, L. Coates, C. Keys

A twelve step program towards safety redemption in emergency management B. Brooks, J. Lock, C. Bearman, C. Owen, S. Curnin

330

307

Disruption of critical infrastructure during natural disasters E. Phillips

Decision making, team monitoring & organisational learning C. Bearman, B. Brooks, C. Owen, H. Stuart

331

308

A Mw 6.0 Adelaide earthquake scenario V. Koschatzky, F. Dimer-de-Oliveira, P. Somerville

Network centric emergency management: Options for filling a strategic void in interoperability thinking B. Hankinson, P. Barnes

332

Scoping remote north Australian community resilience B. Sithole, H. Hunter-Xenie, D. Yibarbuk, S. Namarnyilk, K. Dirdi, O. Dann, E. Phillips, E. Narorrga, G. Nayilibibj

309

Understanding how dynamic exposure affects risk by using a land use model C. Newland, H. Van Delden, H. Maier, J Newman, A Zecchin

333

Towards culturally appropriate fire management in the Waanyi and Garawa lands K. van Wezel, J. Russell-Smith, S. Kerins, S. Jackson

310

Developing and using a decision support system for mitigation planning J. Newman, H. van Delden, G. Riddell, H. Maier, A. Zecchin, G. Dandy, R. Vanhout

334

311

Including land value in hazard mitigation planning G.A. Riddell, H. van Delden, H.R. Maier, A. C. Zecchin

Learning together: Cross cultural emergency management training for northern Australia I. Sutton, S. Sutton, P. Buergelt, N. Rossiter-Rachor, P. Jacklyn, C. Bieundurry, E. Heatherley, J. Redway, O. Bulmaniya, T. Guymala, B. Griemel, K. Bautch

335

312

Communicating dynamic risk in a connected world: Perceptions and possibilities C. Young

The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index: Assessing the resilience of Australian communities to natural hazards P. Morley, M. Parsons, S. Glavac, P. Hastings, G. Marshall, J. McGregor, J. McNeill, I. Reeve, R. Stayner, M. Thorns

336

Volunteering challenges for emergency services B. Calcutt

313

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Economics of natural hazards: Integrated assessment D. Pannell, A. Hailu, V. Florec AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK afac.com.au/conference

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BUSHFIRE AND NATURAL HAZARDS CRC POSTER LIST (CONT)

No. 337

Title Redesigning Leadership by addressing basic volunteer needs N. Popov, M. Jones, D. Parrish

No.

Title

364

Improving fire risk estimation through investigating fire intensity, moisture and temperature anomalies A. Holmes, C. Rüdiger, N. Tapper, I. Dharssi

338

What factors contribute to better and worse mental health in firefighters?

H. Bancroft

365

Disaster landscape attribution low cost 3D monitoring of fuel hazard L. Wallace, K. Reinke, S. Jones, S. Hillman, B. Hally

339

Community-led bushfire preparedness in action: The case of Be Ready Warrandyte B. McLennan, J. Whittaker, J. Handmer

366

Mapping bushfire hazard and impact M. Yebra, A. Van Dijk, G. Cary, S. Marselis, T. Jovanovic, M. Gale, L. de Waal, A. Leavesley, D. Culvenor, N. Garlapati, Y. Chen

340

Power to the people: Implications of volunteered geographic information (VGI) for official emergency management (OEM) B. Haworth

367

Mapping forest fuel load and structure from airborne LiDAR data N. Garlapati, A. Van Dijk, M. Yebra, G. Cary

341

Community-led recover in the context of emergencies and disasters: A case study of community resilience in the 2013 Forcett Tasmania bushfire F. Jennings

368

Modelling forest fuel temporal change using LiDAR Y. Chen, X. Zhu, M. Yebra, N.Tapper, S. Harris

342

Out of uniform: Building community resilience through non-traditional emergency volunteering J. Whittaker, B. McLennan, J. Handmer

369

Effects of Natural Disasters on Sectoral Economic Development: Evidence from Australia M. Habibur Rahman

343

Application of the single microtremor method to the Adelaide’s regolith B. Setiawan, M. Jaksa, M. Griffith, D. Love

370

Design & implementation of pre-disaster hazard loss estimation platform Y. Chen

344

Capturing the impact of the failure of critical road structures on the community J. Mullett, D. McEvoy, H. Mohseni, S. Setunge

371

Bringing hazard and economic modellers together A. Rajabifard, M. Ulubasoglu, M. Kalantari, P. Bhattacharya, Y. Chen, H. Rahman, K. Potts

345

Failure mechanism of a typical girder bridge in Australia due to seismic loads N.Herath, P. Mendis, T. Ngo, S. Setunge, H. Hohseni

372

Meteorology of the Sampson Flat fire in January 2015 S. Slattery, R. Fawcett, M. Peace, J. Kepert

346

What is in the disaster zone?

K. Nadimpalli, I. Mohanty

373

Reviewing past hazard events in Australia and Victoria K. Potts

347

Improving the resilience of existing housing to severe wind events D. Smith, D. Henderson, J. Ginger, M. Wehner

374

Long-range spotting by bushfire plumes: The effects of in-plume turbulence on firebrand and trajectory W. Thurston, K. Tory, R. Fawcett, J. Kepert

348

Understanding progressive failure to wind loads K. Parackal

375

Modelling the fire weather of the blue mountains fires of October 2013 S. E. Ching, R.J.B. Fawcett, W. Thurston, K.J. Tory, J.D. Kepert

349

Realistic disaster scenarios: Severe tropical cyclone in south east Queensland M. Mason

376

Flow prediction through canopies D. Sutherland, K. Moinuddin, V. Novozhilov, G. Thorpe, D. Chung, A. Ooi

350

Cost-effective mitigation strategy development for flood prone buildings T. Maqsood, M.Wehner, K. Dale

377

Refinement and validation of firebrand transport sub model for a physics based bushfire prediction model: Design of a firebrand generator R. Wadhwani, D. Sutherland, K. Moinuddin, G. Thorpe, L. Macindoe

351

Seismic assessment and design philosophy of reinforced concrete walls in Australia R. Hoult, H. Goldsworthy, E. Lumantarna

378

352

Seismic vulnerability assessment of buildings in Australia E. Lumantarna, H.-ho Tsang, L. Nelson, J. Wilson, E. Gad, H Goldsworthy

Weather science to societal impact: Opportunities for Australia in the World Meteorological Organization’s high impact weather project J. Kepert, B. Ebert, P. Steinle

379

353

Meteorological tsunamis along the Australian coastline A. Salehi, C. Pattiaratchi, E. Wijeratne

Nature abhors curvature – fires included! Modelling spot fire coalescence J. Sharples, J. Hilton, C. Miller, A. Sullivan

380

354

Developing better predictions and forecasts for extreme water levels around Australia C. Pattiaratchi, Y. Hetzel, I. Janekovic, E. Wijeratne, I. Haigh, M. Eliot

Evaluation of operational models for wind variability over complex terrain R. Quill, J. Sharples, L. Sidhu, G. Thorpe

381

355

Resilience to clustered disaster events on the coast – storm surge S. Nicholi, A. McPherson, F. Howard, D. Moore, W.Jiang, G. Davies, T. Baldock, D. Callaghan, U.Gravois, M. Woolf, D. Hanslow, J.Guy

Impacts of vegetation regrowth on wind direction over complex terrain R. Quill, J. Sharples, L. Sidhu, G. Thorpe

382

356

Improving flood forecasting skill using remote sensing data: Precipitation retrieval A. Wright, J. Walker, V. Pauwels

Rainforests on fire: Assessing bushfire risk in Tasmania’s wet forest types J. Furlaud, G. Williamson, D. Bowman

383

357

Improving flood forecast skill using remote sensing data – hydraulic component S. Grimaldi, Y. Li, A. Wright, V. Pauwels, J. Walker

Smoke plume injection into the atmosphere and subsequent pyrocumulus ‘blow-up’ M. Ndalila, G. Williamson, P. Fox-Hughes, D. Bowman

384

358

Improving flood forecasting skill using remote sensing data – hydrological component Y. Li, S. Grimaldi, A.Wright, V. Pauwels, J. Walker

Remote sensing of tree structure and biomass in north Australian mesic savanna G. Goldbergs, A. Edwards, S. Maier, J. Russell-Smith

385

359

Disaster landscape attribution attributing active fire using simulated fire landscapes B. Hally, K. Reinke, S. Jones, L. Wallace

Initiation of smouldering combustion in biomass H. Wang, P. Medwell, C. Birzer, P. van Eyk, Z.Tian, M. Possell

386

360

Disaster landscape attribution monitoring changes in burnt understorey using terrestrial laser scanning V. Gupta

Cost effective suppression of campaign fires H. Simpson

387

361

Disaster landscape attribution from the ground to space: validation of Tet-1 and Himawari-8 for active fire detection K. Reinke, L. Suarez, S. Jones, M Soto-Berelov, S. Oliveira

Delivering effective prescribed burning across southern Australia R. Bradstock, M. Bedward, M. Boer, L. Collins, B. Horsey, T. Penman, O. Price, H. Clarke

388

362

Sources of soil dryness measures and forecasts I. Dharssi, V. Kumar

Spatial variability after prescribed burning: Effects on vegetation and soil properties M. Gharun, M. Possell, T. Bell

389

363

Towards the assimilation of AMSR2 soil moisture and vegetation data for natural hazard monitoring and prediction Z. Yazdanfar, J. Walker, I. Dharssi

Victorian bushfire risk management research: a collaboration between the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. L. Wright, E. Ashman

88

AFAC15 CONFERENCE | DELEGATE HANDBOOK afac.com.au/conference

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89

DELWP PROJECT POSTERS No.

Titleor(s)

390

Victoria fire weather climatology dataset â&#x20AC;&#x201C; overview and outputs S. Harris, G. Mills, T. Brown, D. Podnar, H. Reinbold, M. Fearon

391

The probability of bushfire ignition in Victoria N. Read, J. Hearne, C. Tanasescu, P. Taylor

392

Forecasting smoke emission and transport - addressing the knowledge gaps M. Cope, S. Lee, C. Meyer, A. Sullivan, N. Surawski, F. Reisen, A. Wain, C. Weston, L. Volkova, K. Tolhurst, T. Duff, D. Chong, S. Walsh, N. Tapper, C. Paton-Walsh, E-A Guerette, M. Desservettaz, G. Edwards, D. Howard

393

Smoke impacts on community health and social perceptions: International transferability of an empirical model for assessing daily bushfire community smoke exposure over large geographic areas S. Henderson, G. Williamson, J. Yao, F. Johnston, D. Bowman

394

Influence of fire regime variables and growth stage distributions on biodiversity in Victorian foothills forest S. Leonard, L. Kelly, A. Haslem,M. Bruce, F. Christie, J. Di Stefano,G. Holland, J. Machunter, L. Rumpff, A. Bennett, M. Clarke, A. York

395

Is this really working? Establishing a bushfire research monitoring, evaluation, reporting and improvement (MERI) process K. Bosomworth, E. Ashman

396

Planned burn mapping in Victoria using remote sensing G. Newnham, N. Bauer, A. Mellor, A. Siggins, T. Duff, L. Wright

397

Using automated fuel moisture sensors to plan prescribed burns W. Bovill, J. Radic, C. Baillie, A. Ashton, P. Lane, G.Sheridan

398

Bushfire spatial data models and ignition data project T. Phan, M. Kilinc

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