THE official bushfire danger season is now just a month away but local emergency services haven’t been sitting on their hands waiting for the challenge.
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All of the district’s emergency services have got together for a realistic exercise designed to test preparedness for a real life situation.
From an incident control room set up at Lithgow Rural Fore Service headquarters in Lithgow the various agencies worked together to get an understanding of their roles at times of ‘the real thing’.
For the first time there was a representative from the Army, a consequence of last October’s dramatic start to the fire season when a huge blaze was triggered by a poorly timed explosives exercise at the Marrangaroo defence depot.
The simulation to fine tune preparedness was made as close as possible to a real time scenario without an actual fire.
RFS zone manager Superintendent Tom Shirt said the aim was to familiarise the multi agency personnel with the processes in dealing with what is termed a Section 44 bushfire emergency.
All agencies were required to respond exactly as they would in a real emergency.
The scenario was a fire that had broken out on a property on the Ganbenang Road at Lowther at a time when extreme weather was forecast.
The fire was moving quickly towards the Coxs River and had been declared out of control.
Adding to the drama there was incidences of fire trucks becoming bogged and needing to be retrieved together with their crews.
Supt Shirt said such pre season exercises were invaluable in detecting any potential shortfalls in preparedness ahead of the bushfire season.
