MINISTER for Agriculture and Regional NSW Tara Moriarty has met with Forestry Corporation fire specialists to discuss bushfire preparations on the Mid North Coast.

Minister Moriarty attended Forestry Corporation’s Wauchope depot to speak with fire crews, who are geared up and prepared for the NSW bushfire season.

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Forestry Corporation is one of the state’s four fire authorities, alongside the NSW Rural Fire Service, Fire and Rescue NSW, and National Parks and Wildlife.

The organisation oversees land management, bushfire preparation and response across more than two-million hectares of state forests, and has more than 500 trained firefighters rostered on to respond to state forest fires across NSW.

In 2023/24 Forestry Corporation firefighters and fire managers were engaged in a total of 184 fires.

Outside of the bushfire season, Forestry Corporation conducts forest hazard reduction burns, and cultural burns with local Aboriginal communities.

Forestry Corporation also sends its expert fire specialists abroad in the winter months to assist international firefighting agencies in the Northern hemisphere.

“The NSW Forestry Corporation has managed fire in state forests for more than 100 years,” Minister Moriarty said.

“Forestry Corporation’s trained firefighters work in State forests every day of the year, protecting lives, the environment, forestry resources and local communities.

“They have decades of experience in managing forest fires, working with the RFS, managing heavy equipment across major firegrounds and maintaining thousands of kilometres of fire trails.”

Forestry Corporation Fire and Operations Team Leader, Wauchope, Matt Model, said, “In managing more than 200,000 hectares of state forests here on the Mid North Coast, we keep the Mid Coast Bush Fire Management Committee briefed on fuel loads and fire conditions in state forests.

“Since the Black Summer Bushfires here on the Mid North Coast firefighting technology has been rapidly expanded across NSW to include drones and satellite technology, which this summer will help our crews with early detection, mapping, response and containment of forest fires.”