Members of the Australian, Canadian and US coordinating authorities met last week in Boise Idaho, to progress the planning for the upcoming North American fire season, as well as to advance progress on international resource sharing arrangements and processes.

The AFAC National Resource Sharing Centre (NRSC) is the coordinating authority for international deployments of Australian and New Zealand resources on behalf of all agencies. Working alongside North American coordinating authorities, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) and the US National Interagency Fire Centre (NIFC), the NRSC staff manage international resource requests, coordinate Australian and New Zealand agency response, international flight booking, deployment tracing and reporting, and in partnership with agencies, support mobilisation and demobilisation logistics.

Since 2000, Australian and New Zealand firefighters have been deployed to the US and Canada eight times, with a total of 2,295 personnel traveling to assist Canadian and US communities. Of significant note, is that 1,129 of those personnel have deployed in the last two years.

The Resource Manager Group is the key to NRSC’s capability. The group is made up of state representatives, one for fire and one for severe weather. These hazard leads work with the relevant agencies within their state to share the opportunities and the workload of international deployments.

Last week, the meetings in Boise included an NRSC, CIFFC and NIFC staff review of the Canadian and US international deployment operating plans, progress on finalising the international crosswalk, development of international briefing guidelines and a review of Australia’s expense claim guidelines. The NRSC was also able to present to the NIFC operational staff the US National Multi-agency Coordination (NMAC) Group including the heads of the five US fire agencies on Australian and New Zealand arrangements and a brief review of our summer season.

This work reinforced the positive and constructive relationship between Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US that continues to play an important part of global fire management capacity.