SA Firefighter

I hear that a few brigades, lead by a couple of Region One Group Officers made a visit with appliances to the Emergency Services ministers office today.

Sounds like the meeting was a warning, with a bit of a list of things that we need i.e. better stations, more money for paid staff for training, an actual increase in brigade budgets instead of the decrease we have seen over the last few years, more tankers in the hills etc.

I believe the people involved got their point across, also pointing out that there is a major international sporting event about to be held in Adelaide and that next Sunday there could be a large rally of CFS resources at this event. There is talk about one strike team from each nearby Group.

Todays event was not designed to attract any media attention, but with sirens and lights going at a big event in the middle of the city I think there is sure to be some considerable attention given to our situation.

Well done to those involved, I think this is only the beginning of what could be a promising campaign in the lead up to a state election.

Does anyone have any info on this appliance yet. 

I hear that it cost a fortune and looks pretty ordinary - that aside does anyone have any specs on foam / water output ??

I believe these are also user programmable, with up to 16 addresses available. Look out all those super cranks that want to get all the SigInc and MFS pager messages.

http://www.apollowireless.com/servlet/DownLoad?DOWNFILENAME=Gold%20programing%20instraction.pdf&DOWNFILENAMEURL=/upload/Downloads/1/1138923530555_0.pdf

They also come in cool colors like Cranberry and Smoke.

They are actually a more sensitive pager than the current Samsung ones, although they are a bit larger. Lots of CFA nufties have been buying them themselves as they are short of pagers over there too.

If brigades want to purchase their own they are available for around $185 from:
 
South Eastern Communications
Phone: 0449030704
0359720476
Email:[email protected]

For info it was Fred Kerr who decided that all CFS trucks would be white, this was back when there was mixture of Red, White, Yellow and Green trucks around the state. There was a big debate at the time over Red V White but Kerr did some investigation and found that White was the most visible.

99% of the CFS is country.
(ok the 99% is a guess but 96.5% of all statistics are made up)

Yeah, and 90% of the calls are done by urban brigades.

Adelaide Fire monitoring less talk groups would clean up the Metro GRN towers

Would make no difference, Adelaide Fire use Centracom consoles which have a direct connection into the backbone of the network through the NOCC. Same with SAPOL, SAAS, CFS and SES, as well as a few other agencies that use GRN.

They do have the ability to direct connect to a GRN site should the wide area trunking become unuseable though, in that case only the users on the particular site that the Centracom is connected to would hear the comcen. That is why you see the Yagi antennas on top of the comcens, they are pointed at key GRN sites to still provide some coverage to particular areas on a single talkgroup.

Now all we need is GRN simplex on the fireground...

Have to disagree with you there chief.

UHF simplex at the lower end of 400mhz is a fickle beast, it doesn't fare well with smoke, wet pine forests or dense fog. We had our fun with it in the early days of GRN and quite frankly it sucked.

VHF for fireground is the way to go, just give us a few more portables and ditch the crappy speaker mikes that come with the Icoms.

What ever happens there must be something done very quickly because training and organising these crew will take a good chunk of the time left before FDS.

I don't think anyone has ever suggested it will be happening within the next 12 months. There has been no money allocated in the budget for this program and as far as I can tell it is all still a dream in the mind of a couple of people in Waymouth Street.

If it it happens the earliest we would see anyone on the fireground would be late 2008 early 2009.

Unsure but if they didn't it was up to them as they (CFS) have to book in with Adelaide fire on 093 dont they? So MFS would have known about the call?

A better way would be to ask Adelaide Fire to respond the appropriate MFS resources as soon you receive page - thereby trying to adhere to the EMA agreement as much as possible (Under that agreement the response must be a Dual, SIMULTANEOUS response by both CFS AND MFS). If a brigade runs a Duty Officer system then this could be their responsibility.

Alternatively do it when you acknowledge the page.

I wouldn't consider advising Adelaide Fire that you are mobile to an alarm the same as asking them to respond to one, also doing it when you are actually going mobile isn't really advising them as quickly as you possibly could because generally at least four minutes would have passed from the time you received the call.

I have read that - however it doesn't really state how many trucks you should respond to Fixed Alarms - all it says is that the first truck goes to the panel and the second truck (if applicable) to the booster. What does 'if applicable' mean, does it mean if the brigade feels like responding two trucks, does it mean that only respond a second truck if the premesis has a booster, does it mean if you are in an MFS EMA area respond four appliances.

Hence the fallback to SOP 2.1 which has the Initial Resource Response Schedule. This is the closest thing I can find that discusses with any clarity how many appliances you should respond to an incident.

I mean Taplan for example, 5 calls last year, most they have ever done is 16, why on earth do they need a brand new truck,

I agree Pumprescue, this is a disgraceful waste of tax payers money. Considering there are brigades out that do that many calls in day that have not seen a new truck in a number of years it really doesn't seem to make any sense at all.

Taplan may need a replacement vehicle but do you really think it is wise to have a $250,000 vehicle sitting there when a re-furbed one would do just as well - crazy.

Blackwood 34 now online. All crew please familiarize your self with the appliance. Snr 2

Anyone know which vehicle this is that they have got ??

11:50:23 19-06-07 MFS: RESPOND COMMERCIAL FIRE 19/06/07 11:49,GRAND TRUNKWAY -,TORRENS ISLAND, MAP 80 G 2 ,,POWER BOARD ON FIRE,DAILY INC. NO. 30,205 41 251 361 281*CFSRES: MFS Car 41

I thought I remember reading that the Torrens Island Power station actually fell in Salisbury CFS area. No CFS involvement today though apart from Burnside doing a COQ.

If I recall correctly there was a Hazmat job out there a couple of years ago that CFS took care of. Can anyone confirm ??

What if the person that acknowledges the page is in Adelaide, but there is a localised paging outage in the South East and no one down there receives it. You then have MFS believing the page has been received and no one responding to the station.

Just make it the first person in the station acknowledges the page, then they take ownership of getting the truck out the door or defaulting to another brigade - easy.

Just saw this on the paging site

RESPOND TO FIRE ALARM SPRINGBANK PLAZA, CNR WATERLOO RD & KENSINGTING WAY, BURTON *CFSRES:, FIP ALARM *WFAM*, 18/06/2007 11:23:27

Given that this alarm is located in an CFS / MFS dual response area how are MFS going to be responded ??

Looking at this page you would assume that only Salisbury CFS are going. Maybe Salisbury will get to the station and call MFS and ask for them to respond, but wouldn't it be better to do it automatically.

Maybe on the inital page a note could be added - something like 'SOCC TO RESPOND MFS' that way as soon as the SOCC (or MFS Comms soon) see the response page they can initiate a call to MFS and get the appropriate response going as well.

It is interesting to see what response some brigades have to a fixed alarm, many brigades have the WFAM response only to one brigade. Even though CFS SOP's say that two appliances must be responded, are brigades that only have one brigade on the initial page saying that they can always guarantee two trucks out the door ?? If not then we are not responding a correct response to these incidents.

Again I think we are assuming that all fixed alarms will be nothing and that there is no point bothering another brigade for false alarms. Only problem is that if the place is big enough to have a fixed alarm it is at least going to be a B Class risk, as the response to a structure fire in a B Class risk is four appliances we are immediately going to be disadvantaged should we find a going job. At least get two trucks going initially to an alarm so you have some BA backup.

Companies spend big bucks putting in fire detection and suppression systems, it's a shame some CFS brigades don't take the response to them seriously.