Mr Rush opened the new evidence block on structures of agencies.  The two blocks on this topic will examine structures of fire agencies in Australia, in particular the dual roles and overlap in DSE and CFA activities, including:

• Whether there should be a single agency for fighting bushfires or a single entity to fight all fires across the state.
• The idiosyncratic nature of boundaries.
• Should there be just one single chain of command.
• Should Volunteers be paid for some of the activities they undertake.

The Bushfires Royal Commission is in talks with the Brumby Government to hire management consultants to report on the current structure and suggest options for reform.

Structures from other agencies around Australia will be examined over next 2 days. Witnesses include:

• Mike Brown, Chief Officer TFS
• Euan Ferguson, Chief Officer CFS
• Craig Hynes, Chief Operations Officer FESA
• Rob Rogers, Assistant Commissioner (Director Operations) NSWRFS

The second block will be in May 2010.

Evidence today:

Mike Brown, Chief Officer TFS

In Tasmania

• TFS has 4 career brigades in population centers and 230 volunteer brigades (5000 people)
• Forests and parks also have fire responsibility
• Hobart and Launceston stations are the only two exclusive career brigades the rest are composite Career/volunteer, in the fringe urban areas and regional brigades are entirely volunteer.
• it took a long time to work through cultural issues between urban and regional and career and volunteer.
• The State Fire Commission – (union, volunteers, chief officer, local government and state treasury are represented) – sets policy for Tasmania Fire Service and manges the state fire plan

Mr Brown discussed the Regional – District - Brigade structure and the use of regional Chiefs who head up each region and the corporate structure that sits underneath them.

The State Fire Management Council – TFS, Parks, Forestry, Local Government and Industry sit on the Council.  The council:

• Develops a state vegetation policy which is the basis of the state vegetation fire management plan.  – focus is on land management and smoke management
• Has input into prescribed burning policy

Mr Brown discussed training of TFS career and volunteer staff

• All volunteers are trained to level 1 firefighter level – they can then obtain further training to take leadership roles.
• Volunteer can be Brigade Captain, Sector Commander and Division Commander during some fires
• Volunteers can work in incident management teams  - at lower scale they may be incident controller – at higher scale incidents they usually provide local knowledge liaison for the IMT

On payment of volunteers

• Retained volunteers (12 Brigades) – receive small payment for 2hrs training a week and time spent at calls in gazetted area.

Mr Brown discussed the relationship with Parks and Forestry Tasmania and the work they do.

• Parks and Forestry Tasmania do provide fire fighting resources outside their areas.
• They will respond to a fire if they are closest to the outbreak.
• There is an interagency protocol that underpins this arrangement and a multi agency coordination group (MAC group)
  
• This arrangement includes training, resources and equipment being done together.
• Guiding principle of these arrangements is the most able fire agency that can attend, will – the same applies for who manages the incident. Regardless of whose land tenure it is.  This is determined by the MAC Group who sits at the state operations centre.
• When there is a prolonged emergency the police can take over and manage the entire emergency from a state perspective – the only time this has happened is the day after 1967 Hobart fires.

TFS Triage system – Crews travel in front of the fire impact an assess houses in the fires path.

• Houses are classed as un-defendable (red), defendable with firefighters (orange), defendable without firefighter assistance (green).
• Assets are then prioritized and fire crews deployed based on triage
• Triage is only for a particular scenario – it is not a static assessment of a house
• Properties can be assessed for general risk (a structural assessment) at any time throughout the year – some is done by brigades some is done by owners with self assessment tools (brochure at the moment but looking at web based models).
• TFS is currently developing a plan for prioritization of assets to protect critical assets (schools, hospitals, major industry, and critical infrastructure) on extreme days (when fighting the fire is almost futile) that will help a community recover after a fire.

Cross examine by United Firefighters Union

• The State Fire Commission is not a body for airing grievances (such as from the unions). The Commission is a strategic planning body.
• It would examine response to previous incidents in terms of how this will influence future planning.
• The Commission does at times consider cultural issues that have arisen in the past
• Mr Brown does not believe that the brigade structure is incompatible with AIIMS incident structure. He does not know of any problems with the relationship between the brigades system and AIIMS system.
• Does not believe TFS has had to increase level of career staff to fight bushfires.

Craig Hynes Chief Operations Officer FESA

Areas of gazetted fire districts corresponds with population centers in WA
FESA has career and volunteer brigades:

• Career is mainly Perth and 5 major regional centers
• 900 career and approximately 30,000 volunteers
• Volunteers are in more rural areas and often have a combination of urban, rural and SES responsibilities.
• FESA use one training program

The recommendation to create FESA in 1997 was a result of fires and the lack of cohesiveness evident during these events – the "Day Report"
Mr Hynes believes the creation of FESA has delivered great benefits:

• There were teething problems, cultures, turf wars but Mr Hines was surprised by how smoothly it went. FESA was recommended in 1997 and it occurred in 1999.
• All agencies were represented, on an almost pro rata basis, in the creation of FESA.
• The FESA Board overseas the running of FESA – the Board is made up of representatives from each area of business, e.g. volunteers, private firefighters, SES, career staff etc. There are consultative Committees that report to and are represented on the Board e.g. bushfire, rescue, marine etc.
• CEO is involved in state emergency arrangements, Mr Hynes handles operations 

DEC has responsibility to manage land in national parks

• Predominantly land management but has some powers/responsibility for fire management – they have 300 staff for fire crews and 500 trained for incident management teams

Local Government brigades

• FESA provide fleet, equipment, PPE, Capital grants (through emergency services level) and training to local government brigades.
• 113 local governments have brigades – comprising 24,000 volunteers

FESA research into volunteer recruitment found that:

• Face to face is the most effective recruitment method but finding the time to do this is a major problem.

On multi agency fires

• The most appropriate agency will respond to the initial call based on the land tenure
• If it is clear the fire will spread then the arrangement for managing this are contained in the WEST plan (state emergency bushfire plan)
• The tenure that has the most resources in the area will manage the fire. That team can change the IMT if the risks change.
• Disputes are discussed at the Incident management centre run by DEC or FESA – they haven’t had too many issues.
• FESA has 4 major emergency teams trained and ready to deploy – DEC has 5 teams ready for deployment. Members from these teams would supplement teams from the local areas as needed.
• Areas of operations are not determined by boundaries but based on the location of the event.

Difficulties with current WA arrangements especially bushfire arrangements:

• Who leads the IMT when fire crosses boundaries
• Multiple agencies creates inconsistencies with emergency management plans
• Inability of FESA to issues total fire bands in a targeted ways

New Legislation “Bushfires Act Amendment Bill” seeks to address these issues.

• FESA will be able to take control by request or because FESA considers it appropriate due to the nature of the fire
• Local governments can hand control to DEC
• Legal arrangements will be in place to facilitate the above

Euan Ferguson, Chief Officer CFS

CFS has changed their mission statement to focus on continual improvement – wherever any area of the business sits, CFS believes it can do better.

SA has three emergency service operations
SAMFS – urban operations

• gazetted districts (19 metropolitan and 17 regional centers)
• have retained firefighter paid under similar arrangements to Tasmania mentioned above).

CFS – rural operations –

• 59 Groups managing the 400+ brigades all done by volunteers. 
• Groups do higher level command and control and operations.
• 15,000 volunteer firefighters (3290 operational support 11, 810 firefighters)

SES – emergency operations

Department of Environment and Heritage have responsibility for prescribed burning but the Department is also a CFS brigade and are resourced as such.

• The SA government recently had a philosophical change of direction on fuel reduction burning so DEH has done a lot of work in this area.
• During major fires they fall under the Command of CFS as they are a CFS Brigade. – their has not been problems with this

SA State Coordination Centre (SCC) Bushfires

• In CFS headquarters
• Operational, coordination and command and control effort is managed from here.
• Can provide warnings form the SCC. Should come first from incident controller or regional controller but can be requested from State Coordination Centre.

State Controller of Bushfire position (also Mr Ferguson's position) can appoint people to take up specific roles and has a range of tasks the controller needs to undertake including: – developing plans, ensure its whole of government, ensure incidents are managed within the broader emergency management framework.

Levels or preparedness of brigades

• Updated every week and sent back to the SCC
• Each regions preparedness is known and clearly displayed at the SCC and other venues.
• SA has 4 pre-chosen incident management teams consisting of people from all over SA.  When a fire starts a level 2 controller can start the management of the fire and then the Level 3 team can be flown or will drive to the fire to integrate into the current management team and take control.
• Teams are multi agency teams - career and volunteer
• Teams can be pre-formed if there is a catastrophic prediction.
• Each team will rotate through incidents
• SA also has a GIS mapping support team that comes from Department of Environment and Heritage (also a CFS brigade).  

Mr Ferguson discussed the forced evacuation on Kangaroo Island during the Wangary fires. – the only time forced evacuation has been used in SA.
He went on to further discuss the merits or otherwise of declaring a state emergency and the arrangements for first attack aerial fire fighting.

Tomorrow:
Rob Rogers, Assistant Commissioner (Director Operations) NSWRFS will give testimony tomorrow on NSW Bushfire Arrangements.