MFS Take Over

[Scania_1]

Short answer no. If you are a retained firefighter and you get a full time firefighter role with the MFS you have to resign as a retainer. Otherwise they would have to pay you overtime rates for the calls you respond to as a retained firie. Apart from that we need a full complement of retained people as well as the full timers on the books.

[CFS_Firey]

The problem with the CFS is that you can't guarantee a response... you might get the truck out the door 9.9999% of calls, but as long as a chance exists that no-one responds, you can't guarantee it... Thats the reason the MFS would move in...
No one is bagging Mt Barker CFS, they evidently do an excellent job, but because of the nature of the CFS, the government has a responsibility to provide a paid service if needed.
When a town expands to a certain size, or has a huge amount of assets, the government will (or should) provide the best protection - and that is a full time paid service.

If Mount Barker want to get defensive and blame other brigades that are having crewing issues, then thats their problem...

[Toast]

No no no... Regardless of how many members a volunteer brigade have, they can never *guarantee* a crew. Yes places like Barker do a great job of *usually* getting both appliances out the door, but still they do have times where they are short on crew. We had all our rescue crew at a certain bus down hill exercise, had an RCR, defaulted to Barker, they only had 1 rcr person on the truck. It may not happen often, but it still CAN happen.

In terms of callout numbers, the word on the street is that Barker is just a smidge over 300/310.

[jason]

so how many times have stirling defaulted in the last 6 months???

[CFS_Firey]

so how many times have stirling defaulted in the last 6 months???

What has that got to do with MFS takover?

[Toast]

so how many times have stirling defaulted in the last 6 months???

Christ you Barker boys have some issues. As long as no-one starts talking about actually fighting fires, you'll be fine.

[Scania_1]

Who cares if a lot of calls are alarms. This doesnt mean that most of them are justified calls. The alarm usually activates for a reason. Yeah burnt toast may set it off but it is just doing its job and picking up smoke. A high percentage of MFS calls are alarms too.

[Toast]

I'd rather go to hundreds of false alarms than see someones home burn down.

[medevac]

well im perfect...

[rescue5271]

Not too perfect

[Firefrog]

Thin ice here!

Let's work on encouraging each other and avoid the pitfalls of tribalism. eg "my tribes better than your tribe".....That thinking is just silly. Thread will be closed if the tone doesn't change.

Thanks now back to the topic....

[firetruck]

honestly, i believ an MFS station in mt barker is necessary. It doesn't have to be a wakefield street setup, all it needs to be is a one truck station with a standard scania pumper, nothing more, nothing less. I don't think anyone is suggesting we eradicate barker, just modify their setup to a more rural one, with a 24, 34p and a QAV for small grassies. with that setup, chances are barker would still get precious numbers as they would backup the MFS if an incident was large. as manuel said, hahndorf, l/hampton, nairne are all close by as well if things got nasty at a job.

I feel just having that full time crew there would do the job.

[medevac]

^^ in 5 - 10 years...


so until then...


personally i think theyd have to go the christies type set up. with a 1 and a 9... actually m,ight as well go all out and have a 3 as well...

[PF_]

WhenMFS go to MT Barker they would probably be set up like awler (now it seems tribal)  Just a standard brick station with a 9.  Need a rescue/Hazmat type for the SE Freeway.

[Crankster 34]

No one can dispute the fact that MFS will move into Mt Barker and Seaford, it's happening so lets get over it.

They will also take over RCR, if your not sure then have a look at the campaign the UFU has run over a number of years against the vollie rescue unit in Penrith.

http://www.rescuepenrith.com/ This site previously contained some pretty hostile info against the Penrith VRA , the UFU will push very very hard for full timers to take over rescue from vollies in the same area no matter how good a job the Barker boys are doing.

Maybe now would be a good time for the Barker brigade to start looking at another specialty - Rope Rescue, Hazmat, Lighting, BA Support or Catering

[bajdas]

Maybe this will turn into a SAFECOM facility like Pt Lincoln's proposed new headquarters.

[Camo]

Would be interesting to see what would happen with the rescue side of things.

If the Mt Barker station was only setup with a 9 i would doubt they would be keen on sending that appliance too far out of town for rescue.

Which to my thought Mt Barker CFS would keep there type 2 rescue for out of town rescues and a 34 and maybe a 14

Possibly a doubling up resources like we see in a few other places but until we all operate as one fire service under safecom im afraid thats what it would look like to me.

[rescue5271]

Now was not mount barker hazmat before??? and they gave it up so as to do RESCUE calls only, along with other fire duties..May be have MFS/CFS in a new station in mount barker....

[PF_]

Then they wouldnt be CFS anymore.  And it would go against CFS morals.

[rescue5271]

Why could you not have a paid full time CFS firefighter and have Volunteers in the same station??? works well else where in Australia....

[Big Yellow Gongbeater]

No one can dispute the fact that MFS will move into Mt Barker and Seaford, it's happening so lets get over it.

  Well said Crankster, the cold hard facts are that over the next few years, there will be some SACFS brigades that will close (or have significant task reduction) in favour of SAMFS due to urban sprawl, this doesn't mean that vollies aren't doing a great job, but "Joe Public" pays for a service and he wants it!, so there's no use Gongbeating on about the "but if this and that's". Just focus on the task at hand, and get on with it

[Toast]

well I personally think the biggest question is when, because Mount barker is one of the fastest growing towns in South Australia, it will no doubt happen unless the developments stop. I liked the suggestion of making them a Hazmat brigade before, as Heysen group does not have one, and it would be good to get Barker to work with Stirling on the freeway .

It would however be intresting the area in which they would cover, as towns near by are in reach, would this mean that we could lose up to three urban brigades?? as i said before if it is stationed on the freeway.

It would be interesting to see what area an MFS station would cover for rescue. Currently Barker has a rather large RCR coverage area, much like many others in the state. It makes sense for Barker to be HAZMAT, due to the industrial parts of town, although it would mean that there would be a large nuber of HAZMAT brigades in one area. Simply, Burnside (State HAZMAT, ok so its not a group/brigade resource, but still), Stirling, Oakbank/Balhanna and then further out, Strathalbyn. Would thiss mean that another brigade would lose its HAZMAT capabilities?

[CFS_Firey]

Aren't all MFS stations Hazmat?

[Toast]

Mount barker does cover a very large area, and to have a single truck MFS station would not work that well, unless there is some dual response, but with mount barker being RCR they cover all the way out to Kanmantoo way, which MFS would not go to even if they are RCR. Although Mount Barker is becoming a very large town, Areas which they cover include Wistow, and Mount Barker springs and if there was a house fire out there, the MFS trucks would firstly not be able to go up some of those roads. What would work however is put a CFS station at wistow, which could also cover some of the southern parts of Mount barker, and put the MFS station on the south eastern freeway.

?? who knows we can only guess??

Any particular reason that MFS trucks can't get up the same roads that Barkers Heavy Urban and Medium Urban pumpers can get up? I assume by "on the freeway" you mean around the exit, near Anembo (sp?) park? Looking at RCR coverage in the CFS, its all a bit screwy. I mean Brker covering out to Kanmantoo Way, Stirling being second rescue to Dawsley... its a biiig drive.

Aren't all MFS stations Hazmat?

Not all MFS stations have HAZMAT capabilities, although all of the 'Country' Stations do. Depends on how they would class Barker I guess.

[Stefan KIRKMOE]

Aren't all MFS stations Hazmat?


Not all MFS stations have HAZMAT capabilities, although all of the 'Country' Stations do. Depends on how they would class Barker I guess.

Hi all,
In relation to this, all SAMFS stations have a HazMat capability. All SAMFS General Purpose applainces (well Metro ops anyway, not 100% about regional ops) have 4x BA Sets (and spare cylinders), 4 x Splash suits, PVC & Nitrile gloves, overboots and some other assorted HazMat equipment. As well as a crew of 4 Fire-fighters with HazMat training. Some GP Appliances in addition to this also carry 2 x Gas Suits and atmospheric monitoring equipment. I presume regional stations are similar.
SK