SA Firefighter

I dont think i'd go on a gun wielding rampage strikeathird im just worried about my own safety if one of our inexperienced members gets captain as they wouldnt know what to do at a large scale incident resulting in them panicking therefore putting the crew at risk

Like MEDEVAC said its up to the ones who dont want an inexperienced captain to have a say and make sure one of the more experienced brigade members such as myself or my mum get a senior role 

I hope we get some new members fast as we just lost two due to medical reasons 

We need the members fast as we've got a couple in our brigade who think they are good enough to run it despite only being in the CFS for two years and we call these two (brown nosers) even though this doesnt sound like a nice name to give these two volunteers of ours it's true as they have done so many courses in a very short time rather than waiting for a year or two

I know that other brigades in South Australia might have (brown nosers) but one of these is saying he will become captain at next years AGM Election... if this does happen my mum and myself will be calling a walkout strike until Region 5 or SOC has found out and asks why were doing it

Our brigade has only 9 active members with the number likely to decrease to 6 or 5 pending on next years election


Sorry for using the term brown noser but i cant say other words used to describe our show pony brigade members 

Im in the same vote as Sam our community barely knows we exsist because it wont support us by becoming a volunteers or donating money

The only times we use it if theres a huge risk that a grass or scrub fire burning near the town has the potential to escalate in a wildfire and evacuations are needed

If we have a real bad shortage of crew after a call out is placed over our pagers   

On a Wednesday night before the radio check

Just before SAGRN Radios were due to be fitted in all CFS appliances a few years ago i suggested at my brigades general meeting that Kalangadoo 34 should be fitted with a UHF CB Base Radio so we could use to incase of a fire on a farming property

Everyone present at that meeting thought it was a good idea and our brigade funding was going to be used to purchase a radio however at our AGM the very next month when i was about to present the captain with the options of what radio was best our Group Officer said that there wasnt any point of putting a UHF CB in the truck as it would interfere with the SAGRN being it worked on the same band
 

However this did not stop us from purchasing 2x UH040XR UHF CB handhelds out of the brigade money and these have come in handy during training exercises

It also has an advantage for Kalangadoo brigade members such as myself who have UHFs in our own cars as we can talk directly to Kalangadoo 34 or Wattle Range Base to find out what is happening

Although at times i think that a base radio in our truck would have been alot better as we could have contacted landowners who were battling that fire on the Kalangadoo-Glencoe Road in 2002 and found out where the fill up points were rather than having to fill up from a stock trough

Hiya Mike yes we have spoken to our VSO a couple of times in the last few years and have had numerous posters & phamplets printed up but still nothing... i think it's about time the regional offices should take a look at the volunteer numbers at each brigade and hold an open night by doing shock tactis such as showing videos of fires like 1983 and explaining to people that it's important volunteer and keep the community safe

Thats very true as there are always brigades that are RCR trained not far away even if a RCR brigade say for example Penola goes to a Road Crash Rescue over the border and the same sort of emergency happens outside of Kalangadoo the Millicent RCR CFS crew has got our backs covered

You have hit the nail right in the head stirkeathird it's true my 6 years of fire fighting has only been confined to rural area response but when it comes to averaging 10 or so callouts a year all depends on the type of weather but most times half of our callouts end up being stop calls

Also what you said is true having a new rural 34 appliance in our station not being used very often is not viable as it wont get used all the time

From my point of view being a fire fighter for 6 years i reckon that the new 34 appliances should be issued to the brigades who are very busy with RCR and industrial fires and those brigades who are less activegiven refurbished appliances

However the only setbacks with these new 34 appliances is the OHS&W risk involved becasue when it comes to attacking a grass fire the crew have to get out of the crew cab and attack it, should a burn over occur the crew are more likely to sustain ankle and leg injuries while scrambling into the crew cab

In my opinion the tradional 34 appliances e.g. open back and side door appliances are much better despite not having sprinkler systems as bthe crews can hop on the truck quickly and put out a running grass fire safely without getting off the back

im not really sure what is going on with this PUMPRESCUE but it all comes down to the urgency of the incident requiring priority one response

Say for example there was a scrub fire near Penola on the Riddoch Highway going towards Nangwarry and it was moving at a fast speed, Wattle Range Deputy 1 would have to respond priority 1 and above the normal speed limit to get there and give a full sitrep to Wattle Range base so they can dispatch the right amount of trucks

It all comes down to safety of the crew and other road users in an emergency situation ..... also speed limits apply to volunteers who are responding to the fire shed in reciept of the dispatch message if a volunteer is caught by SAPOL speeding to a pager call they will get booked and a kick up the donkey by either their GO or RC

Can anyone tell me where i can locate the CFS New VHF Channels/Frequencies that the South East CFS Divisions use 

During my 10 years of being a CFS volunteer which includes 6 years active service i've seen many changes to fire fighting tactics

Changes i've seen since my induction as a CFS cadet in 1995

The CFS logo on all trucks have changed from the red,yellow,green and blue  star to a red & yellow state logo

The original direct attack method of combating grass fires was jump off the truck on arrival and extinguish the fire with a jet stream of water even though this tactic is still widely popular the new tactic is chasing a running grass fire and supressing it from the truck

CFS helmets have also changed the first one i remembering having when i was inducted to the SACFS fire fighting ranks was a white helmet with a velcro chin strap now we have helmets of similar style but offer face & neck protection and with clip up chin straps

CFS communications has also come along way with the original method of paging being done through a network of fire phones if a callout was recieved through a brigades number the call would go directly to the fire phone of one of the volunteers who would answer the call and activate the station siren via a small button on the phone

Even though the fire phone system is still being used SAGRN paging allows volunteers to know what they are responding to by looking at the response message on their pager

CFS radio communications like paging has come along way with VHF radios being used for fire ground and training and this caused a real headache as 3 or 4 trucks tried talking on the one channel at the same time but now with the GRN only one unit can talk at a time rather than all at once


Hope this info is a real good help to your project

I agree with you OZ FIRE we should be proud to be Country Fire Servcie volunteers as we have achieved so much in terms of having appliances that are really good at providing frontline fire fighting to prevent fires from getting larger


I've tried to get a job with the MFS but it was really hard as you need to pass their literacy and numeracy test before going to stage 2 but im just happy to be a Rural Fire Fighter and thats all that matters