ALBURY is now playing a more central role in the NSW Rural Fire Service with an industrial building north of the airport home to the south western area command.
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The office oversees a newly-created region which extends west to the South Australian border and includes Griffith, Wagga and the South West Slopes.
RFS acting deputy commissioner Peter McKechnie said previously the southern region had been guided from Batemans Bay.
"It was just too big," Mr McKechnie said.
"We wanted to be able to return a little bit more local decision-making, local focus, so that's what we've been able to achieve."
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The command centre has ten permanent staff with another six employed on contract for mitigation work leading into the fire season.
That half dozen join four at Adelong in being new prepatory crews alongside existing teams based at Wagga and Griffith.
The seven-staff RFS regional fire control centre at the entrance to Albury airport will complement the area command office which is in Merkel Street just off Fallon Street.
Member for Albury Justin Clancy welcomed the shift away from Batemans Bay as crucial and pivotal.
"Having the logistics coming out of this area, in terms of Albury, it is a right approach," he said.
NSW Police and Emergency Services Minister David Elliott toured the new office and met fire chiefs on Thursday.
"We've got to be very conscious of geographical barriers so having it west of the Great Divide was always going to be an important strategy going forward," he said of the command's Albury location.
The minister on Wednesday evening visited the border checkpoint in Albury's Wodonga Place to check on the wellbeing of police.
"Despite the fact that it's a moving operation, insofar as challenges and the use of technology is concerned, I think they've adapted very, very well," Mr Elliott said.
"The crossing time I'm told has gone from 45 minutes to 11 minutes and that's only going to be a positive move."
Mr Elliott could not say when the border would reopen, declaring it a matter for Premier Gladys Berejiklian and the chief health officer.
He noted the closure was helping detect crooks with Murray River police district chief Superintendent Paul Smith having briefed him on the joint patrols with soldiers.
"He...said to me they're picking up a lot of criminal activity that they normally wouldn't touch," Mr Elliott said.
"He said that the ADF have been very, very good; they've got good observational skills so the military although without powers of arrest have been observing activities and then advising the police of what's going on.
"(It) has resulted in a lot of crime statistics being down on average."
