International partnerships

Created date

Saturday, November 3, 2012 - 3:35am

Bushfire CRC research has been on show in various places of late, illustrating that the work being undertaken is meeting, and in many cases, exceeding the expectations of our partners.

Last week we held our 7th Research Advisory Forum at the Headquarters of the NSW Rural Fire Service in Sydney. This allowed researchers to present their latest researcher to a critical audience of end users and fellow researchers. All presentations were extremely well received. 

Also last week the International Association of Wildland Fire, of which I am a Board Member, held its 12th International Safety Summit in Sydney, sponsored by the Bushfire CRC. This attracted leading researchers and practitioners from Australia, the United States and France who discussed many firefighter safety issues and shared research results. The Bushfire CRC’s researchers were well represented and presented extremely well. It did illustrate that Australia is up with the leading people in this field, and illustrates the value of the capability building we, at the Bushfire CRC, have achieved.

At both the Research Advisory Forum and the Safety Summit a delegation of French researchers were present, hosted in Australia by the Bushfire CRC. This followed an extensive research project undertaken in July, which saw an Australian incident management team pit their skills alongside a French team in an incident simulator in France. The joint presence of the French, as well as American researchers at the Safety Summit has led to the development of a tripartite research plan, which will see a similar exercise incorporating the French, US and Australian incident teams next year alongside the Bushfire CRC/AFAC conference in Melbourne.