Ryan Clarkstone from Mount Hunter Rural Fire Brigade shares their Bush Fire Survival Awareness Program and describes what worked, what they would change and how the community has responded.
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| Participants in the Mt Hunter workshop learn how to put out spot fires |
Mt Hunter is a rural community 10 minutes west of Camden in Western Sydney. It is mostly made up of small acreages amongst several larger pastoral properties.
Mt Hunter is prone to grass fires, as much of the land is cleared paddocks and grass. There are patches of thick bush and scrub, particularly along creeks behind the most at risk streets in Mt Hunter.
How does the Program work?
The Bush Fire Survival Awareness Program is a series of engagement activities that ultimately aims to have all our residents at risk from bush fire complete a Bush Fire Survival Plan.
Each activity in the series has its own goals, which support the overall or primary goal of Bush Fire Survival Plan completion.
A breakdown and brief description of the activities that make up the program is below. Activities contribute to, and culminate in the Bush Fire Survival Awareness Workshop, where the residents gain the knowledge and practical experience to complete their Bush Fire Survival Plans. I've also included some of the results Mt Hunter Brigade has achieved in these activities so far.
1) Brigade community engagement training / engagement committee formation
The brigade community engagement officer holds a training session for the brigade to explain the aims of community engagement and describe the program and its benefits to the members. An engagement committee is formed to then plan the activities. This helps with Brigade buy-in and ownership of the program.
2) Identifying at risk communities
The Bush Fire Risk Management Plan (BFRMP) and local knowledge is used to identify the streets/areas/properties most at risk in the brigade area and prioritise them.
At Mt Hunter we identified three streets in the brigade area and
comprised 20 properties.
3) Door knocks
The door knocks are the first contact that is made with the community. Each property in the highest risk street is door knocked so that face-to-face contact is made with the residents, as opposed to letterbox dropping. The purpose of the door knocks is to speak to a resident from every property, inform them that they are at risk from bush fire, invite them to a street meeting within the next week and obtain the contact details of the resident.
At Mt Hunter we made face to face contact with a resident from every property in the street and obtained a name and phone
number from every property.
4) Street meeting
Is held one week after the door knocks and is a 30 minute, casual activity where we discuss with the residents the local bush fire risk. This includes identifying their properties on a large map, explaining who identified them as being at risk (BFRMP) and why they are at risk (vicinity to bush, access in and out etc). We then tell them about the planned Bush Fire Survival Awareness Workshop and explain that this is where they can learn to prepare for the risk.
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| Mt Hunter's street meeting |
the highest risk street with a further 20% making contact with
the brigade to say they would like to come but couldn't. Another
three residents from neighbouring streets also attended.
5) Bush Fire Survival Awareness Workshop
The workshop is the main focus of the program, where the residents learn the skills to complete a Bush Fire Survival Plan. It is a one day activity that runs from 9am to 3pm, with structured theory and practical sessions that cover everything from Fire Danger Ratings, Personal Protective Equipment, and Bush Fire Alerts, to pumps and extinguishing spot fires. At the end of the day all attendees leave with a completed Survival Plan.
6) Property inspections
After the workshop we invite residents to book a time for a brigade member to come to their home and help them carry out a property inspection. The emphasis is on the resident to complete the inspection, using the skills learnt in the workshop, with the brigade member being on hand to answer questions. This helps move towards the empowerment of the community to take responsibility for their preparation. The resident also reviews their Survival Plan with the brigade member.
7) Engagement Cafe
The cafes will be run at the fire station on a Sunday morning at regular intervals. The residents are invited to attend the station, which is set up like a real cafe (complete with tea and coffee and tables) and ask any questions or review any aspect of their preparation with a brigade member.
8) Ongoing engagement
As we move into other fire seasons, street meetings will be held with these residents again and we will extend offers to residents to attend future workshops to update Survival Plans and encourage preparation.
What motivated the brigade to start planning the program?
Attending the community engagement conference was the key instigator to begin planning the program.
Who in the brigade has been involved?
Mt Hunter Captain, Marie Turner, Senior Deputy Captain Mick Webber and Mt Hunter member Phil Burgin have been instrumental in helping to organise and run the program. Several other Mt Hunter members have attended various activities to assist.
As brigade community engagement officer, I came up with the concept and structure for the program.
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| Participating in the theory section of the Mt Hunter workshops |
Every activity has a set of goals and a list of outcomes that we measure to determine how successful we were at meeting those goals. For example the goal of the program is to have all residents in the highest risk areas complete a Bush Fire Survival Plan. We then record who has attended the Bush Fire Survival Awareness Workshop and we allocate time within the workshop to complete sections of the plan as we cover those topics. We then know who attended and that they have left with a completed plan and we can measure that against our goal.
What has worked really well?
The door knocks. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of face to face contact. It grabs people's attention, makes it real for them and helps to begin forming relationships with these people. Even after a few short months running the program, I feel I have established a solid relationship with some of these residents, and this began at the door knocks.
The signs we had made up to advertise the street meeting were very effective.
We decided to start with 20 properties, only because that was how many was in our first priority street, but we found that 20 seemed to be an ideal number with the resources and time available to our brigade.
I've set up the program so that it should be easy to use it in other areas. All the program prep work is done and it could be applied in other areas with little difficulty.
What could be improved?
We had to letterbox drop a lot of information (like program agendas and what to bring to the workshop). We now realise we could have handed this out at the street meeting or when door knocking.
Any feedback from the community?
I will provide some quotes the residents left with us at the workshop.
'Glad we attended the day. We have picked up numerous tips for safeguarding our home'
'The whole day was excellent'
The response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive. We were meet with appreciation when we first showed up at the residents’ doors and were told things like:
'(A program like) this has never happened in the 40 years I've lived here'
'It’s really good that you are doing this because we are a bit concerned about what we would do in a bush fire'.
There has already been interest from other brigades in the area to assist them to implement the program in their areas, something the Brigade is excited to help them do.
If you would like information about this program, contact the NSW Rural Fire Service Community Engagement Team at community.engagement@rfs.nsw.gov.au.
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