SA Firefighter

it was a pretty intresting job as every man and his dog rocked up shortly after Kalangadoo 34 with myself and my mum as the OIC's until one of the Wattle Range Deputies arrived on scene

When i mean by every man & his dog we had Glencoe 34,SAAS,SAPOL,SAPOL highway patrol,SASES from Mount Gambier and local landowners from around Kalangadoo

We had a big obstacle while responding to this truck rollover as the fog was so thick you could use a knife to cut it, of course this was my first or second time as 2nd OIC of Kalangadoo 34

But unfortunatley our brigade very rarely gets called to RCR's as first response only when fire cover is required for an RCR crew who is doing extraction

Kalangadoo 34 was paged to a interesting and very unusal RCR early-mid last year, our initial pager message said it was an RCR on the Kalangadoo-Glencoe road turn off no entrapments

Not brag or anything but the person who reported this accident to 000 also called his mother who is my parents family friend she called our home phone and told my dad about this accident

After getting dressed I was halfway out to the incident in my car when the pager sounded resulting in me doing a quick U-Turn to respond but despite being halfway out of town on receipt of this pager message i some how was the first person down at Kalangadoo base   

On arrival to the incident we seen a semi trailer truck which was carrying crates of apples rested on it's side in a paddock with apples scattered out among broken crates... of course the upside to this was that i got a free breakfast of fresh unbruised apples

My name is Robert and I have been a member of the Kalangadoo SA Country Fire Service for 10 years in December....ever since becoming a Senior Fire Fighter in 2000 i've been to a handful of grass/scrub fires one of them being the Kalangadoo-Glencoe Road grassfire in 2001.2 house fires,between 5-10 Industrial Fires including the memorable Carter Holt Harvey Nangwarry mill fire a couple of years ago where i was 2nd in command of the Kalangadoo 34 crew despite being only 19

I've also been to 2 RCR's non entrapment,1 Land Search and 4 strike Team Requests one of them being the Monbulla Grass Fire also a couple years ago               

To date i have my level 1&2 certificates, SAGRN Operators certificate, Senior First Aid and a Emergency Response Warden Statement of Attainment Certificate as well

My interest of becoming a fire fighter was brought on by my father who is the only active member of the original Kalangadoo 44 crew that fought the 1983 Ash Wednesday Fires... being an active member of the SACFS was my strong point during High School as i was given A& A+ nearly every semester in Community Studies because my teacher then is a current active member of the CFS as well

However i am still waiting for the chance to be apart of a CFS deployment crew to go and fight fires interstate

That is very humorous as i was laughing my head off after reading it 

I agree CaptCom because you seen the horror/nightmare of Black Tuesday being on the frontline when it ripped through Eyre Peninsula showing no mercy in January this year

But still i think that those people who were taken tragically by the fire could have saved their lives by having a bushfire action plan like many South Australian families have

Then again you're right about the misinformation factor that happened during and after the Black Tuesday fires...like i said in my earlier post the fire was very much unstoppable because of the fire weather factor on that particular day

I agree strikeathird but whenever our brigade asks about when were going to get a new truck the GO or DGO say were on the high priority list to get a new or refurnished 34 appliance

Plus if Kalangadoo were given a Rural Light Tray 14 Quick Attack unit the brigade members such as myself who dont have a MR licene and turn up first to the station for a fire call would be able to respond first and give a sitrep on arrival to the scene as well as do fire supression

That's very true strikeathird we only had 4 callouts last fire season and one of them caught me off guard completely as i had just got home from a busy day putting up fences in Canunda National Park with Green Corps and was just about to take a can of coke out of the fridge when my pager sounded


We could had more callouts had of we've been called to Comaum where that forest fire was or dispatched to help out at Padthaway with their bushfire

I understand fully the pain in which Eyre Peninsula residents have suffered because of the Black Tuesday fires that claimed 9 lives but suing the CFS over this fire should have never came about

Before the EP residents decided to sue the SACFS over this tragic fire what should have taken into consideration that they (the Eyre Peninsula residents)might not have been adequately prepared themselves for dangerous bushfire weather ahead on that Tuesday when the fire sprung up

Even though the fire itself was unstoppable good preparation and no fleeing by house owners/residents would have saved many houses from being gutted and burnt to the ground

I think its 50/50 blame factor

Even though the Kalangadoo community doesn't show much interest in the Kalangadoo CFS but whenever there is a shortage of crew on a really bad fire danger after the pagers have sounded requiring Kalangadoo 34's response we hit the siren then let to sound continuously until extra crew turn up and plus this catches the attention of town residents 

We had to sound the siren mid last year around 8:00-9:00 am because we didnt have driver after several attempts to contact our brigade auxiliary truck drivers failed,we activated the siren and surely enough a truck driver who was the son of one of our brigade auxiliary members answered the siren call and manned the driving seat enabling Kalangadoo 34 to respond. Also i must note that we were called to a truck roll over on this morning none of our drivers failed to turn up after we were paged

Basically what i'm saying is that station sirens are very handy as there will be times when a brigade has a crew but no driver and will need to activate their station siren in a bid to get one regardless if they are a Civilian or Industrial truck drivers it doesnt really matter as long as they have a MR or HR truck licence

But still the days of press button siren activation were very affective as our station siren in Kalangadoo could be heard a long distance... as for the station siren being set off by SOC that has since long gone as Kalangadoo brigade used to have the siren set off by either Penola or Millicent base for fire calls but this system isnt used anymore

The crew bag i have in my car is those ones that are being advertised in the Volunteer Magazine... my fire uniform bag stays in the car 24/7 so in the event of me being first on scene of an accident or fire i am able to suit up while waiting for CFS crews to arrive rather than get my backside kicked by the Group Officer or Deputy Group Officer for not wearing full CFS PPE

I'm a fire fighter with the CFS in Kalangadoo and when ever we get a call out to a grass or scrub fire near Kalangadoo there is at least 3 or 4 private fire units already combating the fire prior to our brigades arrival

Private Fire Units are the backbone of the CFS if we didn't have these units our chances of knocking down a real big fire in scrub land shortly after it starts isn't very good regardless of how many brigades are on scene and plus these private 14 units can go some places where normal 34 or 24 CFS trucks cant go