Fire Australia 2022: planning for the future

FIRE AUSTRALIA 2022

PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE

Fire Australia 2022 is over for another year. As well as having a series of highprofile speakers and interesting topics, we actively sought the contribution of attendees in workshops on skills and gender diversity, and we foreshadowed a future project on mental health in fire protection.

1. The panel breakout sessions proved very popular.

2. An interactive feature on FPA Australia’s stand allowed people to be ‘wet’ by a virtual sprinkler.

HAJNAL NAGY

FPA Australia

Returning to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, the Fire Australia 2022 Conference and Tradeshow once again proved why it is the largest dedicated fire protection event in the Southern Hemisphere.

From 3–5 May, attendees were treated to three days of thought leadership, innovation, networking and industry excellence.

This year our program boasted leading industry experts across various disciplines within the fire industry, and looked towards the future of the sector, with insights from the plenary sessions delivered by: „ Dr Jonathan Barnett, on behalf of the

International Fire Safety Standards

Coalition, who noted that “fire impacts have no geographical, socioeconomic or political boundaries” „ Victorian State Building Surveyor

Andrew Cialini, who outlined how the regulatory focus is changing in his state „ former Deputy NSW Coroner Hugh

Dillon, who discussed some of his notable cases involving fires, including the 2011 Quakers Hill nursing home fire and the 2012

apartment fire at Bankstown, and reminded attendees that a compliance focus is not the same as a focus on safety „ demographer Bernard Salt, who showed how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the nature of work „ Inspector John McDonough of Fire and Rescue NSW, who gave insights into the experience of firefighters when they enter a burning building.

He observed, “The biggest risk to the safety of firefighters is changes to, or the relaxation of, current legislation, coupled with the introduction of new and untried building systems.”

To capture the breadth and depth of the program, the sessions following the plenaries were split into three streams: „ perceptive—looking to the future of the industry „ political—looking at the current regulatory and policy environment „ practical—technical sessions looking at innovative solutions for fire safety. The perceptive stream was created to explore insights into the future of the fire protection industry, so it featured discussions on what the next decade of the industry holds, changes 1

ALL PHOTOS: JAMES THOMAS

ALL PHOTOS: JAMES THOMAS

4

in construction and maintenance, insurance, liability and duty of care, new technologies and bushfire.

Overall, there are problems with data and some looming skills shortages, as well as lack of trust in the industry. Peter Johnson from Arup noted that “finding skilled people is going to be a huge challenge”, while John Lynch from Wormald observed that “we need to do something to restore trust”.

With the political stream aimed at observing the regulatory environment and some of the direct issues affecting fire safety, we brought in experts like Bronwyn Weir (Weir Consulting ) and James Cameron (the Australian Construction Industry Forum), as well as Standards Australia and Australian Building Codes Board representatives.

Sessions explored sustainability versus safety, the role of the fire safety assessor, and more up-and-coming issues such as electric vehicle safety. Emma Sutcliffe of EV FireSafe warned, “We’re being left behind by technology as it moves so rapidly, while we’re still figuring out what to do.”

At twice the length of other sessions, the practical stream gave life to technical topics to break down relevant issues and share insights with participants.

Sprinklers, megastructures, bushfire design, interfaces, defects, compliance, passive fire protection and fire safety strategies were the main points of discussion.

3

3. The FireMate team took out the best stand award for the second year. 5 6

Michael Stuckings from AFM Insurance hinted at the power of technical solutions, stating, “Systems are only limited by the ingenuity of the engineers that design them.”

Creating a dialogue

Core features of this year’s program were an increase in panel sessions and the introduction of workshops, which created an opportunity for delegates to participate and allowed for more discussion on stage.

Panels of experts from various backgrounds gave their perspectives and insights into relevant issues and, where time permitted, were able to explore differing views about the future of the industry, the complexity of tall buildings, the value of fire safety, the roles of sustainability and digitisation, and strategies to improve mental health, among many others.

The first workshop examined the looming skills gap in the industry, as our ageing workforce starts retiring. FPA Australia Board Member Stuart Yarnall and Rebecca Fullerton from Chubb provided their perspectives with FPA Australia CEO John Kilgour, while the audience was able to provide realtime perspectives through a survey.

The key takeaway from this session was that we need to promote and create more effective pathways into the industry. School leavers need to be shown that this is a worthwhile and rewarding sector in which to work.

Although it has previously been identified, the industry recognises there is a need for more trainers and for experienced individuals to give back to industry, to help the practitioners of the future.

The next workshop brought women to the fore. FPA Australia has run several sessions on ‘Women in Fire’ over the past few conferences, as a lack of gender diversity in the industry remains an issue.

This session was designed to build upon those discussions to identify solutions the industry and the Association can pursue to encourage gender balance.

Newest FPA Australia Board member Yvonne Pengilly chaired the session, joined by Elissa Fazio of News Corp and Anita Kingdom from Total Concept Industries. The panel shared their views about how far we’ve come and what further steps need to be taken.

4. Delegates got to reconnect with their peers.

5. Elissa Fazio discusses initiatives to increase the number of women in fire protection.

6. Bronwyn Weir gave an update on progress with implementing the ShergoldWeir report.

2 4

1. CEO John Kilgour chairing a session at his first conference. 2. Fire Australia 2022 returned to Melbourne for the first time since 2019. 3. Attendees got to choose from 42 different sessions looking at the perceptive, political and practical elements of fire protection. 4. Former Deputy Coroner Hugh Dillon gave a thought-provoking talk about the difference between compliance and safety. 5. Keynote speaker Bernard Salt outlined the changes that COVID has inspired in the working lives of Australians. And talked about smashed avo.

1

The consensus was that businesses must be adaptable to the needs of all their employees, with Ms Kingdom observing, “[Thanks to COVID] businesses have had a crash course in flexibility.”

There was a crossover in discussion across these two sessions. The main issue being recognition that we need to promote pathways into the industry that will inspire women and men to consider a career in fire protection, and to encourage seasoned veterans of the sector to consider helping to train the practitioners of the future.

Innovation and technology in the tradeshow hall

Once again, the tradeshow demonstrated the latest in new technology and practices from some of the leading suppliers in Australia and overseas.

The exhibitions were popular; the FireMate stall won the People’s Choice Award for best exhibition stand for the second year in a row, Johnson Controls took out Best Exhibition Stand over 12 m2, and Fusion Fire Systems the best under 12 m2 .

The exhibitors showed tradeshow visitors some of the best available solutions in fire protection and we received consistently positive feedback from them about the displays.

3

Off-site tours pull back the curtain

Closing Fire Australia 2022, we ran two off-site tours for delegates. This year they had the opportunity to see a fire product rating testing demonstration at Warringtonfire Australia’s laboratories or head over to the Crown Entertainment precinct to see its world-class fire safety systems.

The former showed attendees the effects of fire on materials and the latter showed how the casino stopped those effects from happening.

5

Charitable endeavours and awards

As always, one of the highlights of Fire Australia was the Conference Gala and Awards Dinner.

We celebrated the best in the fire industry and raised over $30,000 for the Fiona Wood Foundation.

Winners of the awards can be found on page 34.

In a special gesture, former FPA Australia President William (Bill) Lea and former Board member David Isaac were inducted as Honorary Life Members of the Association on the night, in well-deserved recognition of their contributions to FPA Australia and the industry.

FPA Australia thanks the presenters, exhibitors, attendees and staff for their support of and participation in this year’s conference and tradeshow.

We look forward to seeing you in Sydney in 2023.