Suppress Wildfire

For crew members who already respond to wildfire and are ready to work with less direct supervision, and at times to supervise others. Program content is mapped to the national unit of competency PUAFIR303 Suppress wildfire from the PUA Public Safety Training Package: the skills and knowledge to work as a member of a crew applying fire control strategies and safe work practices to extinguish a wildfire, take part in mop up and patrol, and prepare equipment for the next crew.

What the unit covers

Seven elements, moving from the first report through to handing the equipment back ready:

1. Receive and report details of the wildfire — location, type, behaviour and developments, recorded and reported to organisational requirements.
2. Prepare to respond — confirm the location and the safest access, obtain protective clothing and equipment, food and water, and select the most appropriate appliance or vehicle.
3. Proceed to the fire — confirm the location on approach, gain access without injury or damage including to environmentally sensitive areas, note evidence of fire cause, use navigational aids, and report arrival.
4. Protect people and assets — assess who and what is in the threatened area, implement protective procedures under direction, control access to hazardous locations, consider the defensibility of property and assist occupiers, and monitor, check and report on safety and security after the fire.
5. Combat the wildfire — take the briefing, confirm and communicate escape routes and safety zones, select and use media and equipment, identify hazards and minimise risk, implement strategies and tactics to meet objectives with the least damage, read fuel, weather and topography to anticipate fire behaviour, keep communication through the chain of command, provide fire reports, and protect the area of origin.
6. Conduct mop up and patrol to organisational procedures.
7. Recover and maintain equipment — make it ready for operational use and replace, record and report anything damaged or missing.

The knowledge behind it takes in offensive strategies (direct, indirect, parallel and combined attack) and defensive strategies (community and asset protection); tactics including backburning and burning out, hand and machine control line construction and direct suppression; crew protective procedures such as alerts and warnings, in-situ protection and relocation; and navigation with maps, aerial photographs, compass and GPS.

How EMTRAC delivers it

Classroom learning, equipment familiarisation, field training, practical exercises, scenarios, assessment and a facilitated debrief, run from the Hunter Valley training base. The unit requires assessment resources that include access to wildfire or prescribed burns or an approved field-based environment, with firefighting equipment and extinguishing media — the base’s bushland, tankers, plant and live-fire capability are what make that possible on the one site.

Participants must hold PUAFIR204 Respond to wildfire, which the unit lists as a prerequisite; EMTRAC’s Respond to Wildfire program is mapped to it. Delivery arrangements, accreditation and who issues any statement of attainment are confirmed for each program rather than assumed.