Almost 100 firefighting and aviation experts descended on Dubbo over last weekend (30 April – 1 May) for the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) Aviation Forum.
Minister for Emergency Services and Resilience, Steph Cooke joined RFS Assistant Commissioner Ben Millington at the State Training Academy for the forum, which brought together firefighters and personnel from the State Emergency Service (SES) and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).
“This forum is an important opportunity for firefighters and other personnel to collaborate, hone their skills and workshop emerging technologies will improve the safety of the communities they protect,” Ms Cooke said.
“The air attack training being undertaken utilises new technology which simulates air attack missions in a mock aircraft, helping our firefighters gain life-like experience in aircraft operations and communications.
“This training is vital because we know our aviation crews perform the crucial roles of supporting our firefighters on the ground as well as intelligence-gathering reconnaissance missions,” she said.
Minister for Environment, James Griffin said a dozen aerial firefighting, training and coordination specialists from the NPWS attended the forum.
“Our NPWS team has access to more than 1,000 trained firefighters, and with some of our National Parks only accessible by air, we have many aviation specialists whose expert knowledge is used to battle fires around New South Wales,” Mr Griffin said.
“This forum is a great opportunity for our specialists to hone their skills and develop relationships with other agency experts, road test and learn about new equipment,” he said.
