Firefighters will join Tamworth's Indigenous community to conduct the first Aboriginal cultural burn within the borders of the city in centuries, during NAIDOC week.
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The overgrown Locks Lane is set to be the location on July 6.
Luke Raveneau, Local Land Services Senior Land Service Officer for Aboriginal Communities, said the low-intensity burn would do more than just clear away weeds from the area.
"Aboriginal people cared for this country for over 60,000 years and cultural burning was a significant part of caring for country," he said.
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Gomeroi Culture Academy Director Marc Sutherland said it would be the first cultural burning in the city within living memory.
"This event's really exciting because it's one of the first times in such a long time that there's been a documented cultural burn happening within the CBD of Tamworth," he said.
"There's been some work recently around identifying different places for cultural burns across the wider Tamworth region. When we're talking around Locks Lane and the Peel River, it's somewhere there hasn't been a cultural burn, where Aboriginal people have been able to maintain cultural practices, most likely since non-Aboriginal occupation."
"Cool" burns are different to a standard hazard reduction burnoff, and cause far less damage to the environment.
But the practice is far more than just a fire management strategy.
In fact it is a critical part of Indigenous culture, Mr Sutherland said.
"As Aboriginal people we walk in the footsteps of our ancestors. We try our hardest to do things the way that they've done things and that's why culture's continued, lore has continued. Cultural burns are a huge part of that practice," he said.
"Being part of a cultural burn is so significant because we know that we're doing the things that are meant to be done, the way they've always been done."
Teams from Fire and Rescue NSW and the Rural Fire Service will observe the burn in case it escalates, Inspector Peter Nugent said.
Mr Raveneau said the burn would be overseen by veteran fire practitioner Den Barden from Yarrabin Cultural Connection.
"We definitely want to support more cultural burning within the region," he said.
"Tamworth [Local Aboriginal Land Council] are in the process of organising bushrangers to gain this knowledge from Dan Barber and Victor Stephenson to actually one day have their own rangers conduct burns within our region, so we won't need other people outside the region. We'll have our own ranger group that will work with Fire NSW and Fire and Rescue and do burns regularly."
Volunteers from the Gomeroi Culture Academy will pitch in to ensure the day runs smoothly.
Spectators are welcome to attend the ceremony. Dancers from the academy will entertain the audience, and there will also be a BBQ lunch on offer.
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