I've just finished a 3 day stint as a volunteer Red Shirt at the annual AFAC/Bushfires CRC Conference held at the Darwin Convention Centre.
Red Shirts (ushers/doormen/reception counter workers) came from BFNT, NTFRS and NTES staff and volunteers. BFNT volunteers were Ray Nicholls, Dianne Tynan, Charmaine Tynan and me, Frank Dunstan. It would have been good to have had more volunteers, especially in a quiet bushfire period brought about by the recent rains.
Red Shirts got to sit in on some very interesting lectures which made the long drive into town worthwhile. For me, the most fascinating lecture was Sofa Superstore - Rising from the Ashes of Tragedy, presented by Tim Sendelbach of the Nth Las Vegas Fire Department. This was a story about how not to do things and how the Charleston (SC) Fire Department lost 9 fire fighters. There is a fair bit of information about this fire on the internet, just Google "Sofa Superstore fire".
Tim was one of the post fire investigators and is a natural as a speaker. The lecture could have gone on for another hour and I don't think anyone would have minded if it had, but there were other activities to attend.
There was quite a large display area and I never realised that there was such a variety, or so many brands of fire fighting PPE on the market.
One interesting display was for a virtual reality disaster training system with a wide variety of scenarios. At present they have no bushfire scenarios, but due to the large number of requests they say they'll respond to potential customers requirements. Earlier in the year a scenario based Tactical Command course was held at Batchelor. Something like this with local scenarios would have been ideal for that course.
It will probably be another 9 years until AFAC returns to Darwin, but for volunteers still around then I heartily recommend that you put your hand up to attend as a Red Shirt. | 
