SA Firefighter

Fines urged for bushfire 'gawkers' ; Sightseers a problem near bushfires (Rhys Popovic, Port Lincoln)

Locals told to get out amid code red fire warnings A push is being made to impose a 'gawkers fine' on sightseers who hang around bushfire zones.

The Port Lincoln mayor Peter Davis has met South Australia's Premier and Opposition Leader to try to win bipartisan support for such a fine.

Firefighters battling a blaze which destroyed houses at Port Lincoln recently were hampered by sightseers who congested roads to get a closer view of the bushfire.

Mr Davis says people caught by using their mobile phone cameras at bushfire scenes should be fined hundreds of dollars.

"I've taken steps with the Premier and with [Opposition Leader] Isobel Redmond for a bipartisan policy when Parliament re-sits to immediately enforce the capacity of emergency service personnel to photograph these idiots' number plates and you'll get a 'gawkers fine'," he said.

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A little bit of change over funding in the SACFS but is something that all ESO can relate to the problems of the sightseers at the incident.

I remember a CFS members telling me that there were so many people wanting to be part of the action she did not know who the driver was and who needed first aid. The incident did not occur in a city or town but on the edge of a highway out in the bush. 

So people what are are your thoughts?

After spending some time around home with family and friends we looked at some of the  brigades or units that we are members of and with a little bit of assistance from the promo website we found some like us where we are part of the two services i.e. SES and CFS.

The question posed is not designed for the lets amalgamate the two services thread that rears it head now and then.

Presently we have one piece of legislation that governs the services, one lot of VSO that are shared between the services and that where two the services cohabit the costs are shared.

But what is not shared or rather duplicated is that of administration, other papper work and training.

If we can share, combine and pool other resources why can't we do the same administration and training where eventhing seems to be duplicated as it it is part of some empire that each service wants.

In times where the cost of providing the services is difficult enough would any cost cutting that is sensible be worthwhile exploring. i.e  one Registered Training Organization as opposed to two one State Training Centre as opposed to two. One lot of asset auditing or financial returns. With the savings  we could always put it back into the services to support those that have given up so much and maybe attract some new ones

Your thoughts people

While I was work the other day after recovering from a previous night CFS meeting (thank goodness for chocolate and caffeine to ease the feeling of sleep deprivation)I noticed a small difference bentween the way that we do our meetings compared to the region / group that I am from.

At work we use an on-line meeting forum or teleconference and video link ups. At the CFS I have the pleasure of driving up to 4 hours to a meeting in the evening and then returning i.e. leave work at 14:30 for a 1830 meeting then meeting finished at 23:00 and after refueling and a couple of stops get to bed by 04:30 to got to work by 07:30. Before you say it I am not from private industry I am a public sector employee.

I would like to know why we can't do this in the CFS use technology that is for meetings. OK there are the reports that need to be handed out can't they just be simply emailed out before the meeting. I don't do my 5 minutes before the meeting.

At the Brigade level I tend to reply off technology to manage the Brigade affairs e.g. messaging programs, email, and other programs from the MS suite of things. I do finds that these programs which have a calender function or a project management function to be quite useful at ensuring that jobs / tasks are done. As an organisation are we growing in to a technology organisation or we still relying off the provan practices of the past - over to you people.

At a recent meeting between myself and the SES we started on a line of discussion about what we do to recognise new members into our services. SES seems to provide members with a membership certificate and a badge (same type as those wonderful safety first badges that got around last year just after the burnover drill). The Certificate that SES provides is not something that can be hung on the wall but enough to say welcome with a generic letter from there CO. I wonder if the CFS has given this some thought as this maybe a new may in which we can retain some members by recognising that they are donating their time.