Purpose of specific work area and position

There are four regions within the Rural Fire Service (RFS), and the Regional Operations Branch coordinates and supports Districts, focusing on the translation of organisational strategy into actionable business strategy. The Regions serve as escalation points for operational issues, foster collaboration with partner organisations, and focus on staff support and development. The Regions have a key role in implementing strategic plans, resource allocation, and enhancing emergency response capabilities.

Reporting to the Executive Manager, Regional Operations, you are responsible for the oversight of incident management, resource planning, and serving as the primary liaison with Firecom for the region. You will provide strategic leadership and support for regional operational service delivery, ensuring that operational capability within the Region focuses on operational readiness, timeliness, and appropriateness of response to incidents within the District or Area. This role is vital in ensuring operational readiness and effective response to incidents within the Region and provides senior management, District and Area personnel with tactical, technical, and operational support for regional operational service delivery.

Mandatory requirements

• Must meet the mandatory requirements and attributes as outlined in the generic Rural Fire Service Inspector role description.

Highly desirable requirements

• Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders from rural and remote communities.

Primary duties

In addition to the generic Inspector, Rural Fire Service role description, the primary duties of the Regional Duty Manager include but are not limited to:

• Manage and coordinate regional operations and logistics, overseeing appliance mobilisation, mutual aid protocols, standby needs, and human resource deployment (including providing input into roster planning and tactically coordinating day-to-day operations).
• Lead operational awareness and oversight in the Region and contribute to the development of situational awareness systems.
• Oversee the management of day-to-day staffing and on-call arrangements, implementing emergency response policies as and when required.
• Assist the Executive Manager Regional Operations in contributing to regional operations management plans, including planning and performance insights, to ensure bushfire response capability and development pathways for the Region.
• Manage the collation of inputs into the Firecom response matrix and be the lead liaison contact with the Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) Duty Manager Operations.
• Conduct operational debriefs with stakeholders, activate post-incident support processes, and conduct necessary operational audits.
• Foster inter-agency resource supply cooperation to meet operational readiness and response needs, including contributing to RFS and external agency mutual aid agreements for enhanced operations management.
• Provide operational leadership and management during specific crises or events, including regional strategic command and control, incidents with special risks, and structural fire and rescue operations involving RFS personnel.

Additional information

• Be able to meet the attributes of the generic Inspector, Rural Fire Service (RFS) role description.
• Rural Officer Two (RFSO2) or applicants with equivalent industry experience, appropriate skills, knowledge, are encouraged to apply.
• Volunteers and external parties with appropriate skills are highly encouraged to apply, noting that they may be asked to provide additional information to satisfy internal policies.
• Have a proven commitment to maintaining bushfire competencies and operating in a regional team environment.
• Incumbents may be required to travel and work within their area of responsibility and may also be required to undertake intrastate and/or interstate deployment and travel.
• This is a day work position yet may require flexible hours of work to meet functional demands, including working at night on weekends as part of the role.
• Incumbents appointed to this position will participate in a personal professional development programme developed in conjunction with their supervisor.
• Incumbents must have proven commitment to maintaining competencies and operating in a team environment.
• Those appointed to a role within the QDMA (Queensland Disaster Management Arrangements) framework will undertake appropriate regularly training, to maintain your role within RFS as a member of any QDMA appointed position.
• This Role Specification Statement (RSS) is linked to the generic role description, that provides the key accountabilities' and capabilities' to be addressed by the applicant. Applicants are strongly encouraged to review this RSS in conjunction with the role description and consider the requirements when preparing their application.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License.