Tamworth celebrates first cultural burn as organisers call for Aboriginal involvement in fire services

The traditional practice was held at Locks Lane on the Peel River on Monday where community members, Aboriginal fire practitioners, and fire and rescue agencies gathered for the momentous occasion.

The burn was facilitated by Yarrabin Cultural Connections found Dennis Barber who said unlike hazard reduction burns, cultural burning was about protecting and caring for country.

"It's what our people did for thousands and thousands of years and like many of our cultural practices it got stamped out," Mr Barber said.

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"The removal of our people from country impacted our people so much and that's what has led to the decades of repeated wildfires in this country, because the cultural practices have not been in place, our people haven't been there, they've been forced off or stopped from undertaking that practice."

Locks Lane, which is usually fenced off from the public, has stood overgrown by vegetation for some time causing a potential fire hazard for the community.

By performing the cultural burn, Mr Barber said it would revive the native species and encourage new growth of grasses.

For Tamworth NAIDOC chairperson Kaliela Thornton, the cultural burn was something that would allow her to continue to use the resources of the land.

Ms Thorton said she often visited the area surrounding Locks Lane to collect seeds from the native grasses to turn into flour for flat breads and cakes.

"This is a way of survival and living, we're using these cultural burns to create resources," she said.

Gomeroi youth were invited to start the spot fires as a symbol of passing down knowledge.

"It's just amazing because this is going to provide so many pathways," Ms Thorton said.

"It's another job option for our youth to go into and be proud."

As the first cultural burn in Tamworth to date, Ms Thornton said she was "surprised" it had taken so long but believed there had been a "massive" resurgence of celebrating culture and identity in the last few years.

"It's taken away a lot of that tokenistic practice that we had and it's emerging and resurging this cultural significance," she said.

While the demonstration was about caring for the land and passing knowledge on to today's youth, Mr Barber said it was also a reminder to contemporary fire agencies to utilise Aboriginal traditions.

"We need to start looking more broadly at engaging Aboriginal people in the fire space and performing cultural burning alongside other agencies," he said.

"There's a job to do, and that's largely about protecting life and property but you also have a job to protect country.

"And the best way to do that is to include Aboriginal people in that process and to let us start taking the lead."

Mr Barber said his relationship with contemporary fire agencies was a "love hate" one, with lots of support coming from local branches but more work needed to be done higher up to include cultural traditions.

"We need to look at what we're doing in this cultural burning space, are we just ticking boxes or are we actually making a difference," he said.

Tamworth Fire and Rescue zone commander Tom Cooper said he had worked hard the last five years to build up a relationship between his crew and First Nations people.

"We do hazard reductions to protect life and property and we do environmental impact studies but we haven't learnt the culture of how it was done for the last 50,000 years," he said.

"There's better ways to do it."

Mr Cooper said by utilising cultural burning he hoped one day Locks Lane would be accessible to the public as a location for all to enjoy.

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