Nearly 1100 emergency services representatives and researchers converged on the converted Shed 6 in Wellington, New Zealand earlier this month.
The annual Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council (AFAC) and Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre conference is the leading knowledge sharing event for fire, land management and emergency services, with delegates attending from across Australia and New Zealand, as well as the US, UK, Korea and many Pacific Islands.
The theme for the conference was After Disaster Strikes – Learning from Adversity – and there were no shortage of recent disasters to learn from. Last summer, Australia experienced extreme heatwaves and bushfires. New Zealand is still coping with the devastating Canterbury earthquakes, while several Pacific neighbours are still recovering from cyclones and tsunami.
Throughout the week, delegates heard many keynotes. On Tuesday, Prof Rory Nathan (University of Melbourne), talked about his experiences as an engineer and discussed return intervals in the Brisbane floods and misconceptions around the 1:100 year flood event. Prof Kathleen Tierney (US Natural Hazards Centre) discussed her experience of spontaneous volunteering and the need for incident teams being flexible during natural hazard events. Prof David Johnston of Massey University, talked about the evidence for the stop, drop and cover advice in earthquakes.
On Wednesday, Therese Walsh (ICC Cricket World Cup) discussed how careful planning, good management and a bit of good luck lead to a successful event and Tom Harbour (US Forest Service) discussed how learning from adversity is vitally important but difficult to attain. On Thursday, Vaughan Poutawera talked about the experiences of a field hospital in Typhoon Haiyan and Deen Saunders presented the case for professional standards in the emergency services.
The week also featured four Professional Development Programs covering: an introduction to emergency management for those new to the sector; the Australasian Inter-agency Incident Management System; a mission command master class; and how to navigate emergency intelligence feeds.
Four field study tours also took place, with participants visiting Christchurch to see the earthquake recovery firsthand, touring New Zealand’s Crisis Management Centre in Wellington, exploring the Fraser Trucks factory and learning about the fuel types, typography and fire risks in the upper South Island.
Speaker audio recordings, abstracts, papers, presentations and research posters can be downloaded from www.afac.com.au/events/proceedings.