Last Thursday the newly founded Gomeroi Cultural Burn Network and NSW National Park and Wildlife Service (NPWS) collaborated for the region's first ever burn in a national park.

The burn, at the Boonalla Aboriginal Area just North of Gunnedah, was one of three that have occurred over the past couple of weeks.

Other burns took place at Walhollow and Bective.

Member of the Gomeroi Cultural Burn Network Joanne Stead said the burn is a great sign for the future of cultural burns and therefore cultural practice in the region.

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"It was a new experience for all the National Parks staff as well and they're hoping to do more of it in the future," she said.

Ms Stead said the time is right to start building cultural burn expertise in the region, with numerous agencies like NPWS beginning to show interest.

"There was certainly a whole bunch of people from the biodiversity and conservation network and the conservation farmers who were interested in our workshops," she said.

There are even government agencies who have taken on board the burgeoning interest in the community, according to Ms Stead.

"Local Land Services has their own Aboriginal ranger trainee group that they're just starting with at the moment," she said.

Ultimately, she said the goal is for Indigenous people to be empowered with expertise in cultural burning.

"Build up to a level where there's people who have enough expertise to create a little business or something like that within our region," she said.

"The idea was to run a whole series of cultural burn related workshops over a year and then have a big networking meeting at the end."

The Gomeroi Cultural Burn Network partnered with the Tamworth Aboriginal Land Council and the Red Chief group at Gunnedah to get the burns happening more often.

There are indeed many more cultural burns on the way for the region.

The funding extension for the burns provided by the NSW Government means there is support for the burns so long as they are done by September.

Naturally, there is now a rush to get as many in before the deadline to give as many people as possible the opportunity to be involved.

Manager of Community Risk for the RFS North Western Area Command Shellie Smyth said the RFS has already helped stage three burns.

She said they also have three burns on the way for next week in Manilla, Pallamallawa, and Thirldene.

"It's driven by the Indigenous community, so we're there essentially to provide support," she said.

"As well as lift our knowledge and experience in the cultural burn space as well."

RFS North West has already taken strides towards integrating cultural burn knowledge into their organisation at Moree.

"We've got an Indigenous mitigation crew at Moree," said Ms Smyth

"And we're working actively to get them very experienced in the cultural burn space so that we can better support Indigenous communities across our area."

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