Mon 15 Mar 2010

Last Day Celebrations

Posted by admin under event, seasonals
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last Friday completed my final shift with National Parks and my new adventure began. Many thanks to everyone that I have worked with over the last 7years and 3 months (8 fire seasons). There were many faces present who I have had great times with. moments of fear, joy, kinship and clarity. I will never forget the places I have traveled to and the people I worked with.

Special thanks to Ian Tanner who surprised me by turning up and then floored me by giving a very nice and sincere speech. I certainly took a great deal from it including a laugh or two re my next career.

There are too many people to thank individually here, what I intend to do is add a moments section to the site which will have photos and anecdotes of some of those adventures. I am also planning on changing the attitude of the site to more positive with the intent of helping those that remain.

I will thank the guys and girls from NLD who were unable to make though. There are some amazing people at Blackhill/ Para Wirra who have taught me a great deal about life. Thanks folk.

A big thanks for the gifts all. They were very thoughtful and will always remind me of the people and adventures of arfmu.

Remember to look up and know where the black is- shaun

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Mon 15 Mar 2010

Wildfire Today » Blog Archive » Firefighter pay and liability legislation making slow progress

Posted by admin under fire, seasonals
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Article on wildfiretoday.com talking about retaining experienced fire fighters and stopping defections. Pay, recognition and conditions seems to be universal issue.

Better pay and benefits and increased legal protection for the nation’s federal firefighters are needed to help reign in the increasing costs of battling wildfires across the country, say proponents of a bill making its way through Congress.Compensating firefighters for all the time they spend at fire scenes and extending year-round health benefits to part-timers would help curb defections from the agency, they say. By strengthening its own ranks, the bill’s supporters say, the Forest Service would have to rely less on costly assistance from local and state fire departments.Additionally, the legislation seeks to recognize the dangerous nature of firefighters’ work by changing their titles from “forestry technician” or “range technician” to “wildland firefighter.” It also would raise the mandatory retirement age from 57 to 65 in an effort to keep more veterans within the agency.“If we can retain some of the younger folks that have been hopping ship, and we can keep some of that brain trust around for a few more years, we have a better opportunity to fill in the missing gaps of those federal resources,” said Casey Judd, business manager for the Federal Wildland Fire Service Association, which represents federal firefighters nationwide.

via Wildfire Today » Blog Archive » Firefighter pay and liability legislation making slow progress.

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Thu 11 Mar 2010

Last Day working for ARFMU

Posted by admin under deh, fire
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So here it is, finally it is my last day working for the Adelaide Region Fire Management Unit. There is no question that I will miss the people (DEH, SA Water, Forestry, CFS and Clarendon Bakery:) )) . They really are a special breed working very hard and loyally for very little money and in sometimes difficult and dangerous conditions. Most of them are CFS volunteers as well, they do similar work for free outside office hours- great people.

I am also going to miss going away to fires for both the experience and interacting with the other staff. It has been good. Shame that the last 12 months have been so bizarre, alas …

Right now I am trying to find all the gear I have to give back. There is the fire fighting PPC and issued accessories/ items. There is the uniform. There is the chainsaw helmet, chaps, etc. I have to give my work pants back so they can give them to some poor sole who is not worth buying new gear for. VHF radio- check, RAFT led light – check, pager – check, t-shirt -check (sorry about the blood stains if you get my old one), stove – na used my own (bet they ask for it though), cup- yep you can have my cup back. Smoke mask- sure, backpack, fire bag, – all good.

Looks like I can find most things.

Once I give it back, DEH will probably issue me with new stuff so I can remain on the Westaff casual fire fighter list. Who knows, maybe they have enough people to do the burns and so on.

I am certainly looking forward to handing over all the high viz and flammable yellow clothing tomorrow. Until then …

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Mon 8 Mar 2010

http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_more_info.cfm?CON_ID=9880&CAT_ID=1327

Posted by admin under News
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NSW Rural Fire Service celebrates its female members

http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_more_info.cfm?CON_ID=9880&CAT_ID=1327.

NSW Rural Fire Service celebrates its female members

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Sat 6 Mar 2010

Current scholarship opportunities Bushfire CRC

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The Bushfire CRC is calling for outstanding postgraduate students to be part of a dynamic national bushfire research program for safer communities and ecological sustainability, investigating areas such as fire behaviour, management of fire in the landscape, and social and economic aspects of bushfire.

The Bushfire CRC is offering outstanding postgraduate students access to:

  • Full Scholarships of $28,000 per annum over 3 years, and

via Current scholarship opportunities.

Top Up Scholarships (for APAs and University scholarships) of $10,000 per annum over 3 years.
Expressions of Interest are invited from students interested in undertaking Masters of PhD studies with backgrounds in science, psychology, social science, botany, ecology, geography, IT, economics, engineering and health sciences.
There are plenty of people in DEH who have the ability and drive to complete post grad studies and even a PHD in making fire fighting safer for everyone. Please only use parks as a stepping stone. use your mind to make the world a better place.

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Sat 6 Mar 2010

started working on site SEO- updated

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Just started changing a few aspects of the arfmu website to get higher results in google/ yahoo etc. Hopefully it will just work but I may have broken stuff. Please let me know if it plays up- shaun

Here are the current search engine ratings:

Yahoo.com.au

  1. search for arfmu – arfmu.com is search result number 1 (13/3/10 still 1)
  2. search for “adelaide region fire management unit” – arfmu.com is result number 1 (13/3/10 still 1)
  3. search for “deh fire: – arfmu.com is result 5 (13/3/10 arfmu.com up to 3)

google.com.au

  1. search for arfmu – arfmu.com is not in the top 30, however one of my other sites is number 1 and links to arfmu.com (13/3/10 arfmu.com now result 1)
  2. search for “adelaide region fire management unit” – arfmu.com is not mentioned. I think someone has asked that it be removed from search results. That’s fine it just makes getting it back into the top 10 a fun challenge (13/13/10 sorted :) ). 4 of my other sites are listed in the top 10 :) (13/3/10  arfmu.com now result 1)
  3. search for “deh fire: – arfmu.com is not in the top 10. http://fireseason.net (another of my domains) is listed in position 2. (13/3/10 arfmu.com now result 5)

Obviously I intend being at least in the top 10 results in all of the above. (13/3/10 -done) Fortunately my new IT business is partially based around Search Engine Optimisation.

You can help raise awareness of the seasonal program and help improve the search engine listing by posting links to http://arfmu.com from forums or other websites. Do not spam but please spread the word. – shaun

Update 13/3/10

SEO never really ends. I could keep working on it, but I am happy with the current results and quite frankly have to spend time and energy working on some other projects.

There are at least 3 other sections that need to be added to this site as it evolves into a more positive view of arfmu to help the remaining staff. I have had a request for a photo section and I want to add a stories/ anecdote section and a contact page. These should be up shortly.

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Sat 6 Mar 2010

Fire Shelters for Remote Area Firefighters

Posted by admin under death, fire, injury, oh&s, rights
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Another interesting point made by Mike Williams last Thursday was that the RAFT crew (Remote Area Firefighter Team) would not be getting fire shelters. This came as no surprise but I would be very interested to find out why. He did mention that they had looked into them, but were not going to provide them.

Is it a matter of the $300ish dollars?

Is it because DEH are not willing to admit that fire fighting is dangerous?

Is it just plain naivety?

I doubt it, so what is the reason?

Perhaps a recommendation from CFA not to use them PROVIDING you manage entrapment avoidance.

fire_shelters_discussions

The position of not recommending the use of fire shelters must be supported by an active management regime that avoids entrapment and provides fire fighters with higher levels of protection

I argued the case that fire shelters have saved lives and asked what were RAFT crew supposed to do in a burn over situation. He did not have an answer for that, just argued that RAFT were not going to get them and that DEH’s RAFT system will not place crew in danger. It seams as though safety in a burn over while not having access to a vehicle has not been a consideration.

Here is an article which mentions:

Wildland firefighters have carried fire shelters since they were developed during the 1960s. More than 1,100 firefighters have deployed the shelters, which are credited with saving more than 300 lives and preventing hundreds of burn injuries.

http://wildfiremag.com/technology/fire_shelter_overhaul/

Interesting reading. Please comment or add more articles below.

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Sat 6 Mar 2010

We use the Victorian seasonal system

Posted by admin under fire, litigation, seasonals
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During the meeting on Thursday Mike Williams pointed out that ARFMU follow the Victoria system. After reading the following I have to agree:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/19/2824591.htm?site=news

Three decades of Government failure:

The Bushfires Royal Commission has heard an impassioned plea from a former forest fire chief to drastically increase the amount of planned burning done in Victoria.

He said existing staffing levels were “shameful” said too many of the existing staff were desk-bound rather than being on-the-ground firefighters.

The Commission heard the Victorian Government announced an extra 151 extra permanent DSE field crew to be provided over four years, but only 23 were ever appointed.

He told the Commission there had been a “failure to provide a safe environment” to Victorians over three decades.

You know, I think he is right.


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Sat 6 Mar 2010

Mount Lofty Ranges Fire Cooperative (MLRFC)

Posted by admin under fire, meeting, seasonals, training
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Mount Lofty Ranges Fire Cooperative (MLRFC)

http://www.environment.sa.gov.au/fire/about/mt-lofty-ranges-fire-cooperative.html

The MLRFC formation underpins the cooperative spirit that exists between these organisations to ensure that the management and suppression of bushfires in the Mount Lofty Ranges (MLR) is safe, efficient and cost effective on both public and private land.

Communication and trust will continue to be fostered throughout and between these organisations in order to achieve this.

Well I am sure there is communication and trust between the organisations. not so sure about the throughout bit.

Now I think the coop is a great idea, it should underpin some ongoing funds for DEH fire, however it is also going to put a great deal of pressure on ARFMU to be a professional, well trained and well managed organisation. There will be times when the young recruits are expected to perform roles that they are not ready for.

High expectations from the community and other institutions combined with a high turn over rate, low morale, limited experience and poor training will end badly.

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Thu 4 Mar 2010

Thursday Meeting

Posted by admin under meeting, oh&s, seasonals
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Started Thursday off with a trip to Black Hill to catch up with Mike Williams and Laurie Haegi. They were nice enough with Laurie calmly sitting back and listenning for most of the conversation and Mike trying to negate most of my points. It went for around 45 minutes.

We talked about:

  • Full time employment for some staff.
  • Safety
  • Morale
  • Training
  • Equipment
  • Budget vs safety
  • Communication
  • Past injuries
  • ways ahead

I didn’t really take full advantage of the meeting leaving out some points, but all up I was quite happy with it. They (mainly Laurie) took some notes and indicated that the minister would be briefed.

My general impression was that they were going to filter what I said and not hassle the minister too much. If that eventuates and he only receives a censored version then I will personally send him an open letter via the media. I hope that is not the case.

One very obvious aspect of the meeting was the lack of information passing up and down the chain of command. Somewhere, someone is making sure the ideals at the top and the reality on the ground can never be compared. I honestly think Laurie and Mike are doing the best with what they have. They are just unaware of the truth.

The only other meetings I have in the pipeline are Michael Wright and Isobel Redmond. Niether have been finalised, but fingers crossed- they are a little busy right now. The posible incoming Cabinet Ministers Mark Goldsworthy and Michelle Lensink asked if I was prepared to go to the media. I am thinking about it but don’t want to get it wrong. I am sure 891 would be very, very interested but then again who knows …

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