Protecting fire fighters

Senior staff in Tasmania Fire service identified a need to enhance retention of
volunteers by improving the overall quality of leadership in volunteer brigades. A
TFS Volunteer Leadership Development research project was developed in
collaboration with the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre Volunteerism Project
team at La Trobe University.

In 2007 senior staff in Tasmania Fire Service identified a need to enhance retention of volunteers by improving the overall quality of leadership in volunteer brigades. A TFS Volunteer Leadership Development research project was developed in collaboration with the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre Volunteerism Project team at La Trobe University.

This is a report of findings from the fourth, and final, stage of the TFS Volunteer Leadership Development Project, involving five focus groups with a combined total of 49 brigade chiefs. Two groups were held at east Hobart and at Launceston, one group was held at Burnie.

Christine Owen is a project leader for Bushfire CRC research on incident management systems. She was interviewed at the 2010 annual conference.

Liam Fogarty is the Lead End User for the project on Effective Incident Management. He was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference.

Rick McRae led the Managing the Risk component of the Bushfire CRC Highfire project. He was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference in Darwin.

James Minas is conducting his PhD project on "Making decisions under uncertainty". He was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference in Darwin.

Deb Parkin's PhD project considered the contribution that the development of a minimum standard of training might have on the effectiveness of an Incident Management Team. She was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference in Darwin.

Marco DeSisto's Phd project is investigating the complex interactions in bushfire risk management. This video was recorded at the 2010 Annual Conference in Darwin.