SA Firefighter

In my group it's a mixture of corrupt or not receiving messages. All our fire fighters are intelligent enough or have been informed to keep their pagers away from other equipment that may cause issues. We have member live in the same house and one get the message and the other does not.

What is the contact for the help desk to log issues?

Closest most appropriate?
Well can you that can gaurantee a fully trained ba crew?
Even if their an hour away, is thats not better than defaults and untrained crews?

Sounds like you're in the MFS how did you possibly get in with grammar and spelling you have shown above?
he he he!

First of all defaulting stations is something that is not unique to the CFS you only need to mention a retained MFS brigade in the Mid North that no longer exists or an MFS station had had trouble getting crews in the Barossa that was being backed up by a full time appliance from Gawler when other CFS stations with appropriate crew are closer.
 
It does not make sense for appliances to traverse great distances past other resources from another fire services and that goes for both commands of both fire services.

How about we stop the game playing and just get on providing the best fire and rescue service model we can provide to the community which will always be a mix of paid, retained and volunteer in this state due to budgetary constrains and practicality of service gained versus dollar spent!

Stop banging on your gong and get on with the job!

6739264

You've hit the nail straight on top of the head, I think at a corporate level for a long time rural firefighting has been their major concern and I understand fully that it is one of the greatest threats to the state.

Unfortunately if you look at the statistics of what brigades are responded to presently and the possibilities of what they can be responded to the CFS needs to be in a position to cover all threats and provide the best service to the community.

The SFEC's need to be abolished and brigades being called rural/urban or urban/rural. The training and equipment needs to be upgraded to meet requirements for the service presently and into the future.

For example the 34P appliances you can not just drag out the side line from the appliance and drag it into a structure fire as it does not produce the required 750 k.p.a. at the branch you must lay out 1 line 3 lengths of 38mm hose. If you ever get to use a HP hose line off an MFS applaince at an incident, the difference is like chalk and cheese!

Who cares the job does not pay eonugh!

 

cos it's called driver TRAINING.....because we all know no-one ever has to actually drive an appliance on a job in the wet....or on a sandy track...or heaven forbid on the dirt...when the winter jobs come in someone else will do it wont they???....seriously some of you people should stay at home in your nice safe air conditioned comfort and knit

Yes the CFS could improve they way it delivers training in this field agreed

You've all hit the nail on the head it is training therefore you do not put the crew of the appliance at risk and if you want to practice driving in wet conditions you do a risk assessment by assesing the track etc. As you have time as it's training so you mitigate the chance of any incidents where you could damage the appliance or put your crew in harms way.

You don't need all the courses in the world to have a bit of common sense!

It was a few years ago they rolled their 14 on the way to an incident and Tea Tree Gully got diverted to cut them out now this. Some brigades really need to look at what they do driving at training and incidents.

This is a classic case of the OIC and the driver should be constantly assessing the driving conditions and you have to ask why would they have gone down a wet track and have a fire fighter on the crew deck when just going for a drive.

The single rope vs twin rope system argument will go on for ever and ever. I've only trained in the twin rope system but some of the police, ambulance officers, fire fighters and rescuers that came from a single rope background said after seeing the twin rope system they will be pushing their services to adopt that system if they currently did not use twin.

Maybe it is time for SES to change and come in line with fire and industry which use twin rope systems? Might be useful if everyone is using the same system and when persons are dropped it won't be kept secret!

As for Hilti safe-rings how would they be beneficial in a rescue scenario I doubt if they would be in the right location and they are only used in concrete and cavity brick walls and need to be load tested before use as per Australian Standards to 6kn for rope access or 7.5kn for fall arrest systems hence why you see them on commercial building sites.

As for response to heights rescues in the Metropolitan area and major regional centres it should be SAMFS with SAAS SOT's for medical. In country areas it should be SES and if they are not available CFS trained on the same gear as MFS.

Response to these incidents needs to be the quickest and most appropriate!
 

I guess there are positives and negatives for all changes.

At my brigade we have lads that belong to other fire services and emergency services and wear SCBA on a monthly or weekly basis and see this as a positive as they can quickly and easily stay current on a simple principle of wearing SCBA and these shift workers do not have to waste a weekend with having to go to Brukunga and these lads make up a lot of our day crew for BA and RCR so it's vital to have a system that is flexible.

As for brigade bad habits filtering in this can be managed by following the FGP's and SOP's that are now available on-line and having the guts to intervene when we see safety concerns.

I have to agree with you CRASHNDASH on some issues. I have concerns with some of the smaller brigades that are not exposed to regular decent training and high numbers of incidents that some brigades are. So therefore their knowledge and experience will be lacking so I think we need to see a blend of the old and the new to capture the diversity of the service.

Still banging on about rescue vans - Firefighters drive trucks!

Wanna drive a van start sellling pies an pasties or trade your yellows for orange!

Quote from: 6739264 on May 15, 2010, 11:51:06 AM

than one appliance to a Vehicle Fire? C'MON GUYS... Learn to fight fire!

I assume you are talking about fighting the fire rather than the response SOP? if so yea i agree

One appliance can extinguish a car fire granted but you have to look at the overall risk. I feel it is a 2 appliance response and you can easily stop a resource if not required. Examples- Stolen vehicle burning on the side of the road during summer, say no more. Vehicle on fire in an urban setting under or next to buildings. Vehicles on LPG requiring the cylinder to be cooled.

All  rubbish aside the buck stops at the Captain, Lieutenants or the most senior brigade member at the time the pager drops and should be managed better by Group Officers and give them more power to do so...

1. The issues are brigades not defaulting when they should.
2. Responding with inadequate crews on appliances for the given incident.
3. Putting stops on brigades from other neighbouring stations or groups before they have fully assessed the incident.
4. Poorly written Group response plans that rely to heavily on that groups resources when sometimes other group resources are closer and more practical and should be included.

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I'm with you on this Alex, not to mention the amount of groups that send command cars to alarm calls, tree fires etc, so an appliance doesn't have to respond


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Group cars to alarm calls so appliances don't have to move I've heard of rumours like that, does nothing for others services and the public accepting us as professional.

Bittenyakka,

Your new 34P is probably better than the old appliance you had at your station but there is still more room for advancement in the CFS current fleet and if you’re not at a bust station they would probably work ok.

The pump panel on the 34P's is agricultural.
Storage of equipment leaves a lot to be desired if it was a decently designed appliance you'd have hoses all in one locker RCR equipment in one, at the moment gear is stored all over the appliance. Plus the trucks are slugs up hills. Also to my knowledge there has not been too many builds without issues, so you have to ask the question who is looking after quality assurance?

Also if there were real pumpers not 34P's placed strategically within the state they could be used tactically and efficiently in the states response.

At the moment we have a lot of brigades that respond on the urban fringe of Adelaide and other major country towns where they interface with the MFS. Currently these brigades as I've said in previous statements get told no you can't have a pumper because we don’t have the funding for it and MFS area is not our problem. We still expect you to respond into that area under EMA agreements, plus it would be political suicide for those brigades not to assist.

So therefore when we are in MFS area and that second appliance arriving could be CFS it is meant to go to the sprinkler system to boost under the response plan that can not happen with the size of current pumps on CFS 34P’s. Also our pumps are unable to boost aerial appliances due to the size of the pump. These pumps could also be beneficial when they respond into CFS areas as they won’t generally be first arriving and they can boost from the mains to other CFS appliances or supply a large volume of water if required.

Bittenyakka your theory of only using one 64mm hose or two 38mm hoses at a time does not always work. I’ve been to a number of incidents in the first arriving appliance when the second is still a while away the structure has been well involved and protection lines are called for to protect exposures before any offensive tactics are put in place to extinguish the involved structure so multiple hose lines and decent volume and pressure is required. So you need multiple hose lines working on the first arriving appliance. Also your statement of saying just wait for more appliances is that the best answer and the issue of fire mains not having enough supply that can be managed and you’ve only highlighted 2 incidents out of how many multiple alarm incidents and I was at the pool shed fire and did not experience any pressure decrease but that may be true as two aerials were in operation and other hose lines.

As for sending emails to Arthur Tindall is that my job he is the manager of I&L he should have his staff coming out and talking to brigades that have had new designs of appliances for a while to gain feedback not us chasing him. He gets paid money to manage the fleet not me!
could be used tactically and efficiently in the states response. At the moment we have a lot of brigades that response on the urban fringe of Adelaide and other major country towns where they interface with the MFS. Currently these brigades as I've said in previous statements get told no you can't have a pumper