andy_1071

I have had two parallel careers, one in Local Government with Dorset County Council and the other in the Fire and Rescue Service for most of my working life. I was made redundant from DCC in 2018 and now have my own Wildfire Training and Consultancy business - www.WildfireTaC.com My local Government career started in 1984 as a Countryside Ranger where I worked all over Dorset on a wide range of countryside access and conservation projects. I was then seconded into the Geographical Information Systems team. I left DCC as the GIS Manager. Since 1983 I have also been a Retained firefighter, currently a Station Commander with Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service. During this time I have gained experience in a wide range of operational activities, but since 1998 I have been specialising in Wildfire. I am currently a UK Wildfire Tactical Advisor. I have been involved in wildfire research in the UK, Europe and South Africa. I am currently an Associate Researcher at the wildFIRE Lab in Exeter University. This provides an excellent insight into a number of wildfire issues that would otherwise be overlooked by land managers and the FRSs. I was fortunate enough to spend a month working in the Kruger National Park in South Africa looking into ignition patterns to create different fire intensities for controlled burns. I have also worked on wildfires in the USA, most notably the Valley Fire in California during 2015. I attended a Training Exchange TREX in, Oregon in 2016 and again in 2017 working on prescribed fires mostly in forestry plantations.