Bush Fire Protection & Land-use Planning Regulation in Australia – What’s it All About (Perspectives)?

David brings forty-nine years collectively of training, education, and experience in the Fire Service and Fire Engineering disciplines, the last fourteen of which have been in the bush fire protection regulatory environment with the NSW Rural Fire Service as Manager Development Planning & Policy, and most recently, CEO & Principal Advocate/Consultant with Helping Hands Planning & Design PTY LTD.

David has earned tertiary qualifications in fire engineering and fire science from the University of Maryland College Park and Montgomery College Rockville (Maryland) respectively, and has lectured in fire safety engineering and fire protection systems at the University of Western Sydney. He has also served as an adjunct faculty member at the Community College of Southern Nevada in fire prevention and fire protection systems before relocating to Eugene Oregon where he worked as the fire marshal overseeing building and fire code promulgation, enforcement, hazardous materials licensing, fire systems design approvals and testing, fire investigations, and public education.

After serving as an operational firefighter and emergency medical technician in the U.S. then moving into the fire protection, building codes, and associated land-use planning regulatory spaces as a fire engineer and fire marshal, David emigrated to Australia where he worked as a fire safety engineering consultant, followed by the NSW Fire Brigades as their first fire safety engineer.

Subsequent to the NSW Fire Brigades David moved to the NSW Rural Fire Service where he spent the majority of his career as Manager Development Planning & Policy, overseeing policy and other related matters within the context of the regulatory environment for building bush fire protection and associated land-use planning in NSW.

David’s background has provided unique and valuable insight into performance-based design, assessment, and compliance within the regulatory environment state-wide, domestically, and internationally, in terms of building and fire codes, as well as land-use planning, all within the context of how prescriptive requirements interplay with performance-based design and compliance.

Having arrived in Australia in 1997, he is keenly aware and appreciative of the Fire Code Reform Process that occurred (including the work undertaken by the Warren Centre), and how the Building Code transitioned from a prescriptive set of requirements to a performance-based code.

His extensive and comprehensive experience in fire safety engineering in the public and private sector, on all type of projects ranging from residential to Olympics 2000 projects, has provided a keen understanding of performance-based design, assessment, and compliance from the perspectives of technical and public-policy related matters.

David is a member of FPA Australia (Corporate) and is registered as a Chartered Professional Engineer (Fellow) with the Institution of Engineers Australia (Engineers Australia).