Published works

This report outlines progress in the North Australian Fire and Natural Hazard Training project.  The project is part of a program of action research projects based at Charles Darwin University entitled “Building Community Resilience in Northern Australia”.  This program includes both physical and social science research into natural and cultural processes that impact upon the vulnerability and resilience of remote north Australian communities. 

The Building Community Resilience in Northern Australia program has a strong focus of action research to encourage and enhance existing nodes of capability and excellence.  The most prominent of these for fire and emergency management are ranger groups.  These groups have grown substantially in the last decade and have built a solid base of capacity by ensuring skills, knowledge and qualifications in fields as basic as driving a car to operating GIS.

The North Australian Fire and Natural Hazard Training project aims to provide a ‘next-generation’ training program that builds on the current assets in the north such as the ranger programs and leads to increasing levels of competence and confidence and in its turn, resilience. The project is a response to north Australian stakeholder concerns that existing training is inadequate for their needs.

The project was late to start, but has now completed four new training units and is moving on developing further new units and, where appropriate, adapting existing units to suit the needs of northern Australia.

A key focus of the new training units is the development of a didactic approach to building an understanding of the differing world views about fire and emergency management and the ways these affect preparation and response, particularly to bushfires, but also other natural hazards.

The project has made presentations to the Wellington AFAC/BNHCRC conference, the Research Advisory Forum in Sydney and the North Australian Fire Managers Forum in Cairns in June.

A workshop for stakeholders was held in May in Darwin and a further presentation was made at a workshop of the “Building Community Resilience in Northern Australia” in Ngukurr in June.