Wodonga will be home to the new Region 24 Headquarters Brigade aimed at bringing together resources and people to better manage fires.

Region 24 operations manager Paul King said the move was driven by increased public scrutiny after the bushfires royal commission and higher community expectations.

“We’re responding to increased community expectations about the way we manage fires, the way we get information out, the way we feed the media machine, the way we look after our people and the way we interact with other agencies,” Mr King said.

“The expectation that firefighters are going to get a message out to the community straight away means we need more people.”

The brigade will be a non-fire fighting unit and will operate from two locations, the regional emergency co-ordination centre at Wodonga Region 24 headquarters and the incident control centre at Wodonga TAFE.

“It’s not a brigade of people who go to fires, it’s a brigade of people who will support headquarters operation,” Mr King said.

Equipment is already in place, and the biggest effort will be to train people.

Roles to be filled include general administration, log keeping, radio communications, liaison between agencies, logistics, mapping and aviation support.

The brigade will start training within a month and an information session is being held tonight at 7.30pm at the Wod- onga fire station.

Editorial — page 12