Fri, Oct 31, 2008
Industry Meets To Discuss Ways To Safely, Efficiently Battle
Blazes
Organizers say the Aerial Firefighting Conference 2008, which
took place in Athens, Greece on October 22-23, was highly
successful. Organized by Tangent Link Ltd, the first annual
conference was attended by twenty-two nations.
The conference was chaired by Johann Goldhammer of the Global
Fire Monitoring Center and Rear Admiral Terry Loughran. The agenda
included fixed and rotary winged operations, safety, management and
technologies; subjects which dominated the vibrant conference.
Many interagency meetings ensued to discuss and debate how to
tackle wildfires from the air and how international aerial fire
fighting management organizations can improve and share their
knowledge and systems. An exhibition of some of the worlds' leading
operators and suppliers was held simultaneously; the exhibition
drew considerable interest from the delegates and provided a focal
point for many of the accompanying discussions.
Panel sessions took place on Air Pollution from Aerial
Firefighting and a debate was hosted by Chris Allen from the
EU-Civil Protection Directorate on whether Europe should finance a
cross-border aerial fire fighting squadron. Leading exponents took
part in the debate including Tom Harbour, Director, Aviation United
States Forest Service (USFS, USA), Shane Fitzsimmonds, Commissioner
NSW Rural Fire Service (Australia), Dave Bokovay, Aviation Manager
CIFFC (Canada) and Colonel Fernando Pastor Villar, Commander 43rd
Group Spanish Air Force (Spain).
Two new upcoming events were announced at the conference. The
Aerial Firefighting USA Conference is scheduled to take place in
Anaheim, CA on February 19-20, 2009 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The
event is supported by UN-ISDR and the Global Fire Monitoring
Center, and sponsored by Bombardier.
The second event is a one-day Aerial Firefighting Australasia
Conference taking place in conjunction with the New South Wales
Rural Fire Services' "International Wildfire Management Conference
2009" taking place in Sydney, Australia -- the largest fire
fighting management event of its kind in the Australasia
region.
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