Where there’s smoke…

It’s hard to believe that it’s almost a year since we were up to our eyes in organising the UK Wildfire Conference at the Europa Hotel Belfast; two days of intensive presentations, lots of spinoff meetings and sessions…not to mention a field trip beforehand and all the social trimmings that make such events so useful.

It’s only when you’re putting such an event together that you realise how diverse your audiences and interest groups are. We had to put on good, useful content that would appeal to not just firefighters but also land managers, regulatory and enforcement agencies, academics, environmental groups, community leaders, planners…… but that of course is the price you pay in order to get such a wide range of roughly 200 people exchanging information, ideas, problems and solutions under one roof.

As you might expect, after two years of planning the actual event did bring its own nerve-wracking moments. Trying to help exhibitors carry in their extremely heavy and large demonstration equipment and hoping your door width measurements were actually right was one early challenge (they were right with about 3 cm to spare…) The informal get together in a noisy restaurant the night before which you booked for 10 and 25 turned up was another – luckily the staff were brilliant but near the end quietly informed me that it had to be only one bill (they relented in the end and put up with 25 cards or cash of various world currencies……

All of this was made well worth it when we finished on a wonderfully positive note, with both old and new friends and a renewed camaraderie willing to face the increasing challenges ahead 2023 would bring us. Roll on 2024 and Aberdeen!