Superintendent Julian Griffiths used innovative technology to help save homes in the Menai area during last month’s bushfire, State Parliament has been told.
Miranda MP Eleni Petinos said she had been told, for the first time, the police helicopter PolAir fed live aerial video footage to those leading the fire-fighting effort on the ground.
Ms Petinos’s revelation came as she paid tribute to Mr Griffiths’s six years as a police commander in Sutherland Shire.
Sutherland Shire Council has also formally thanked Mr Mr Griffiths, who has taken the reins of St George area command after leading the newly merged shire command and the area covering the western half of the shire before that.
Ms Petinos told Parliament, “Those of us who have had the opportunity to work with the superintendent, and to know him well, are going to miss him dearly”.
“Media reports have not captured that Superintendent Griffiths is a capable and competent commander who has always been dedicated to serving the local community.”
Ms Petinos said she had only recently learnt Mr Griffiths was responsible for a new, innovative approach in the Menai area bushfire.
“Superintendent Griffiths was essential in organising much-needed reinforcement from the NSW Police Force through the Aviation Support Branch, or PolAir,” she said.
“PolAir provided situational awareness and enabled decisions to be made based on live aerial footage that was broadcast directly from the chopper to headquarters for the viewing of Superintendent Griffiths, Superintendent Andrew Pinfold from the NSW Rural Fire Service and anyone else involved in operational command.”
Ms Petinos said she was told this was the first time PolAir has been used for this purpose.
”I am told that, if we had not had this intelligence platform during the fires, property would have been destroyed – that is, people’s homes,” she said.
Mrs Petinos said the intelligence included the width of the head of the fire, the time of impact and the exact street the fire was approaching.
“I understand that Superintendent Griffiths and Superintendent Pinfold had the ability to talk directly to the pilot and ask him to point the cameras in specific directions to relay the information that they required,” she said.
“Without that, I cannot tell you how devastating it would have been for the community.”
Shire councillors, at this week’s meeting, unanimously endorsed a mayoral minute presented by Cr Carmelo Pesce.
The council will write to Commissioner Mick Fuller, expressing gratitude to Mr Griffiths “for his professionalism, dedication and commitment” to the shire community.
Individual councillors added their comments to the official minute, with Mr Griffiths’s role during the bushfire mentioned by several.
Cr Pesce said among Mr Griffiths’s many achievements was “his ability to form strong and binding connections with the community, lead emergency management efforts in times of natural disaster and lower crime rates in all key areas”.
The mayor said Mr Griffiths’s parents migrated from Wales and moved to Cronulla, where he attended Woolooware Public School.
Mr Griffiths had joined the police force in 1990 and, in 2012, returned to the shire as commander of the then Sutherland Local Area Command.
“Superintendent Griffiths has remained passionately committed to our community and has served us with dignity, respect and honour during this period,” he said.
Cr Pesce said the new merged shire command had been “a resounding success under Superintendent Griffiths’s guidance and leadership”.
The St George community was “most fortunate to gain the services of an officer of such high integrity and commitment to community service”, he said.
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