Opinion: Black Saturday to Black Summer – turning lessons into action to help keep people safe (Australia)

[…] This follows a history of investigations into major fire disasters in Australia dating back to 1939 — all aimed at introducing measures to prevent fires, save lives and protect property. We all welcome the discussion to do things better — but we also want to see effective action. Regardless of who you talk to, the lack of resilience and interoperability of communications during a disaster is a constant theme. We’ve heard countless examples of communication failures — networks going down, old radios that don’t work and the use of improvised methods in the field, such as mobile messaging apps, so that our extraordinary volunteers, staff and agencies can just get the job done of saving lives and property.