Over a period of more than 40 years, Gary Morgan has made many significant contributions to the management of forests and forest fires at the state, national and international levels. For 9 years, he was Victoria’s Chief Fire Officer for public lands before becoming CEO, for 7 years, of the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre. He remains very active in two national organisations. The Forest Fire Management Group, and Forestry Australia’s Forest Fire Management Committee which he is the Chairperson. He is also the Chairperson for the Government of Victoria’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on wildland fire risk. In 2000, Gary arranged the first deployment of Australian and New Zealand firefighters to the USA then initiated the development of the formal forest firefighting support agreements between fire agencies in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. In 2005, he participated in drafting of the United Nations FAO’s Fire Management Voluntary Guidelines then became a member of the FAO Fire Management Actions Alliance Advisory Group. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), in 2018, for his significant service to the community through fire response organisations, and to forest and fire research, and management.

Started in this fire world as a firefighter back in 1989. Became a fire-ecology forester in 1997. Started my corrent position as incident commander and Wildfire strategic analyst at Catalan Fire Service in 1999. Created the GRAF teams and directed its division along with prescribed burn plan and wildfire training program. Internationally involved in support missions as EU ECPM wildfire expert. Founder and former president of Pau Costa Foundation, now on its Advisory committee. Teaching at the University of Lleida Master Fuego as a professor, Serving at the advisory board member Leverhulme wildfire center. Have been recognized by the International Association of wildland fire (IAWF) safety award at Boise 2015. Also, by Montero de Burgos award for communication in Forest and wildfires in Madrid 2017 by the foresters association. Lately, in 2022 I received the Felip Costafreda award for the work done for farmers and their role in landscape management against wildfires. Since 2021 I have been back to school at WUR (NL) doing a PhD in boundary layer physics, and wildfire changed fire spread patterns

Dr. Judi Beck was the executive lead of the Pacific Forestry research facility for the federal public service until her retirement in 2022. She has managed national research programs in a variety of disciplines within the forestry sector including wildland fire, genomics, sustainable forest management, climate change, and forest pests. Dr. Beck has a passion for engaging leadership and building learning organizations, as well as enabling a culture of continuous improvement and excellence in fire management, forestry, and governance. Prior to joining the federal public service in 2009, Dr. Beck was Manager, Wildfire Management for the province of British Columbia (BC), and she worked for the BC Forest Service in policy, legislative development, litigation management, international technology transfer and operational emergency management from 1993 through 2009. She worked operationally in wildfire response as one of Canada’s first fire behaviour specialists. She has enjoyed working internationally in Australia, Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, and the USA. She obtained her B.Sc. (Forestry) from the University of New Brunswick in 1985, an M.Sc. (Forestry) from the Australian National University in 1988; and her Ph.D. (Fire Growth / GIS) from Curtin University, Western Australia in 2000.

Lara Steil is a Forestry Officer (Integrated Fire Management) at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) since July 2022. She graduated in Biology Science and holds a master's degree in Biotechnology and a PhD in Sanitation. From 2005 to May 2022, she was the coordinator of the interagency department at the National Center for Wildfire Prevention and Suppression in Brazil (Prevfogo/Ibama). Over her 17-year career in fire management, she has been promoting national and international cooperation and the development of activities related to integrated fire management with indigenous and rural communities, promoting equity, diversity and inclusion. She is also involved with the paradigm shift from zero fire to integrated fire management through the development of public policies.