Four South West bushfire incident management experts from Western Australia have been deployed to Queensland to assist in battling multiple fires.
More than 100 bushfires continue to burn across the state, with multiple bushfires threatening communities in the central and northern regions.
A total of 10 experts, five officers from the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions’ Parks and Wildlife Service and five from the Department of Fire and Emergency Services are highly skilled and experienced in a variety of incident management roles, including incident control, planning, logistics, operations and public information.
This adds to the 28 DFES career and volunteer firefighters that arrived in Queensland yesterday to bolster frontline firefighting efforts.
Emergency Services Minister Francis Logan said WA was proud to join New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania in assisting Queensland during this challenging time.
“Highly skilled DFES incident managers and frontline firefighters, as well as volunteer firefighters, will provide a much needed reprieve for local crews as these fires continue to burn across Queensland,” he said.
Environment Minister Stephen Dawson said the Parks and Wildlife Service personnel deployed yesterday morning will draw on their decades of experience to provide specialist incident management expertise.
“Western Australia has a long-standing and proud history of providing frontline and incident management forest and bushfire experts to other States and overseas in times of crisis,” he said.
“Queensland personnel were among the many who flew west to assist WA during the fire season in 2015 and 2016 and we are pleased to be able to return the favour.”