Fire Perimeter Lead

You must...

Attend Ranger training

Must be sober on shift

Must wear fire safe clothing on Saturday and Sunday evening shifts (natural fibres – cotton/wool) and sturdy footwear, preferably hair covered

Key duties in the lead up to Burning Nest

• Liaise with and support other leads and key members of the team
• Coordinate with other leads to determine size of perimeter, time of volunteer briefings etc
• Schedule perimeter volunteer briefings, ensure volunteers know when these are, book them in the WWW guide
• Prepare notes for volunteer briefings
• Recruit volunteers for both of the major Burns of the event (typically effigy on Saturday and temple on Sunday)
• Communicate with volunteers the week before Nest to remind them of requirements
• Organise equipment

Key duties during the week of Burning Nest

• Liaise with other leads
• Recruit/liaise with volunteers, introduce yourself onsite if possible
• Ensure appropriate equipment is onsite and will be available for your team on Saturday and Sunday
• Attend pre-burn leads meeting (could be Saturday or earlier in the week)

Key duties on Saturday and Sunday

• Deliver perimeter volunteer briefings before each burn including what is expected of volunteers, procedures, what will happen, how to be safe, how other volunteers will support etc.
• Attend other meetings/briefings as appropriate
• Before the burn assign volunteers to their positions on the safety perimeter and close the area to participants
• Support volunteers before, during and after the Burns
  • Making them feel comfortable with what will happen
  • Being available to them if they have questions, concerns, issues etc.
• Sign in/out each volunteer of their shifts and debrief (what went well, what could be better, support and get help for them if needed)
• Designate secondary support resource(s) for moments when you may not be available or far away (Quadrant lead/leads). Quad leads should be volunteers that have previous experience with a burn perimeter. They should have radios.
• Direct the response to any risks or incidents related to your area and coordinate with other leads as appropriate

Key duties following the Burn

• Ensure equipment gets returned/removed from site as appropriate
• Fill in any relevant incident reports
• Follow up with volunteers
• Write a post-Burn report including what went well, challenges, incidents, learnings, and what you would change next time

Be responsible for your volunteers

Afternoon perimeter volunteers – 2-3 volunteers to put the perimeter rope up and close off the area when the Effigy/Temple team starts the burn prep to keep participants out of the worksite.

Evening perimeter volunteers – number depends on size of perimeter. Prefer 2 per post (3-5m apart) so they can swap out and each watch part of the Burn. Going to estimate 20 per night for now but will reassess when we have more info.

You'll be responsible for equipment

Perimeter equipment:

• Ropes
• Pegs/poles

Responsible for ensuring this will be available onsite, organising logistics if needed, getting them to the relevant site, removing and putting them away afterwards

• Radios for perimeter team – yourself and quadrant leads
• Hi vis vests or other identification (I dislike having non fire safe hi vis but it’s recommended for crowd control purposes)

Time before:

2-5 hours per week as needed from January to May

Time during:

Approx. 5 hours during the week

Saturday approx. 2-10pm

Sunday approx. 2-10pm

You don’t need to be on shift the entire time, so long as you have volunteers in place who can manage the situation. You may wish to be on call during this period. You will need to be at the briefings and on shift approx 7-10pm each day

This lead/co-lead role reports to Health and Safety Lead and Burn Site Lead