Forestry Corporation staff from the Snowy region, including staff based in Batlow, Tumbarumba, Adelong, Tumut and surrounds have been awarded the National Emergency Medal for their role in managing the 2019-20 bushfires.

Staff were presented their medals this week at a ceremony at the Batlow RSL.

The National Emergency Medal is awarded to persons who rendered sustained or significant service during nationally-significant emergencies in Australia.

Forestry Corporation is a statutory firefighting authority and staff spent over 300,000 hours firefighting during the Black Summer fires in 2019-20 as part of the State’s coordinated firefighting response supporting the Rural Fire Service and all other firefighting agencies.

Dean Anderson, Forestry Corporation Snowy Regional Manager, said the National Emergency Medal was a significant honour and congratulated the staff who received the award.

“Every fire season, our forestry firefighters are on the ground in local communities and forests and during the 2019-20 Black Summer fires our staff were deployed to fires around the State to protect life, property and forests,” Mr Anderson said.

“Our firefighters are first responders to fires in State forests, but during major bushfires like the Black Summer fires they also work in communities to carry out frontline property protection, incident management and other community firefighting as part of the State’s coordinated firefighting response.

“Our staff play a critical role in NSW’s joint firefighting response and the National Emergency Medal is a fitting recognition of the commitment they showed and the risks they took during that national disaster in order to keep communities safe.”

Forestry Corporation has been a firefighting authority for more than 100 years and has primary responsibility for preventing and managing fires across two million hectares of State forest statewide.

Firefighting is a part of the job for staff at every level of the organisation, from senior management through to casual and seasonal staff and forestry firefighters must complete annual fitness tests and meet training requirements and national accreditation standards.

For more information about Forestry Corporation of NSW, visit www.forestrycorporation.com.au/firefighting

Media contact: Rod Campbell