FAQ

Glossary of Terms

Hazard Reduction: Activities undertaken to reduce combustible materials. This can be undertaken through mechanical methods for example slashing grass, constructing of fire breaks or through prescribed burning.

Back-burn: Part of active fire fighting, we use fire as a tool to build larger fire breaks and remove fuel before the main fire front reaches containment lines.

Section 44: {Taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia}
A "Section 44" refers to the New South Wales Rural Fires Act 1997, specifically section 44, Commissioner’s responsibility.

Essentially it is used to describe when the RFS Commissioner declares a localised "State of Emergency" for a specific district suffering severe fire conditions that cannot be managed without drawing in extensive resources from other areas.

Once declared by the Commissioner the district has access to any and all firefighting personnel/equipment from across the State at no cost to the district or RFS, with the State Government footing the bill of all related Section 44 declared operations.

STARG: {Taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia}
A term that has been used in the past to describe a New South Wales Rural Fire Service task force comprising multiple crews/tankers organised and depolyed to areas/regions requiring firefighting assistance for extended periods, including interstate operations. Crews usually deploy for 12 hours worth of firefighting at a time, but can also be deployed for 3 or 7 days.

This term has not been used officially for some time. In line with AIIMS, the NSW RFS deploys Strike Teams or a Task Force.