SA Firefighter

As said on many occasions - one size does not fit all!
Everyone here has their own opinion and is free to express it but please don't try to force yours on anyone else!

Couple of comments following reading some of the replies above - the 'we only want to stay in our area' mentality is fine - but if we were all like this, that would mean no-one would help their neighbours or even further afield yet some of those that will not go away are the first to cry for help and outside assistance at times.....

I for one, and many of my members joined to 'help' and get value and pride from doing so.  We don't mind what form helping takes, for example, we have quite a few retired/semi-retired members who were just about past their active fire-fighting duties but have been given a new lease of life with the hook truck and the duties required of it at times - many of them are quite happy to go on a trip like the one that was requested of us.

Point made?

We've received our long-sleeve cotton shirts from Rachel at Triple-Zero clothing at Aldinga.

Bottle green shirts with the taxi-rank logo (done in yellow and red) with the brigade name (JERVOIS) underneath on the left-breast.  We had each members christian name on the right breast and SA COUNTRY FIRE SERVICE on the back in yellow.

Very happy with them, most of us wore them to the Monarto station opening and appliance commisioning yesterday and they brought a lot of interest from many levels.

Customer service was great and the price was good too with Rachel giving us the special price advertised at the R3 Field Day adding two dollars per shirt for the extra customising.

But what resource would they use to look at it and analyse it to such a level that meaningful results could be given out.  Sounds easy but could be troublesome without a clear set of rules and guidelines on how to interpret the data etc.

And even if they find or employ such a person, it would then be subject to the region, group and brigade disputing and arguing about every last detail....

I would say that by the time that it got all the way to the firefighter and back up the chain, very little if any change would actually occur!

MFS: *CFSRES INC037 20/06/11 12:47,RESPOND STORM DAMAGE,224 NICOL RD,MEADOWS MAP 202 J 16,ROOF STARTING TO LIFT FROM HOUSE. - LIZ,0411 XXX XXX, P2,STR029 - SES Strathalbyn


Have just seen the above page come in - interested to know what you would do as an OIC of a responding unit to this - could be CFS/SES etc??

I don't know the area but am assuming it is residential or semi-rural from the street address.

I am also assuming seeing as it is blowing a hoolie here in Murray Bridge that it would be also doing so in the hills.

I would not be expecting any of my crew to place themselves anywhere downwind from the structure or possibly in the structure (maybe depending if it is a brick/solid construction or a lightweight?).

There would be little could or should be done to stop the roof from breaking free??

Is it a case of looking at exposures eg next door property and seeing if anything in the way could be moved/saved (although this puts people in the downwind situation) - or would that be a task you would ask SAPOL to do (if they were onsite)?

On the flip side, what would the resident be expecting to happen when the appliance turns up??
Somehow rope the roof?
Empty the house?
Retrieve pets etc?
Move everything out of the shed?
Herd the sheep/cows/horses to a safe location?

Surely there is a process out there to go through to change your brigades SFEC if you are not happy with the level and can indicate or justify the level of risk to have the number increased thus allowing more in a particular brigade or group?

If you raise the matter and can provide sufficient justification, even if it doesn't happen, you then have something to fall back on in the future if a related situation were to occur.

Surely the numbers are not set in stone, I'm not saying it will/would be easy but surely worth a go if it is that critical for your brigade/area??

Let me clarify - our issue has always been with the radiators.

However, several R1 trucks of same build have reported having major air cleaner issues (to the point where they have had to stop and clean filter out during an incident) therefore I&L have had Tremmel Tooling design a retro-fit snorkel that is to be installed on all trucks of that build.

MFS: *CFSRES INC050 22/11/10 12:54,RESPOND RCR,CORNER GOODWOOD AND DAWS RD,PASADENA MAP 141 P 9 TG182,TRUCK INTO POWERLINES. POWERLINES DOWN.,UNSURE ENTRAPMENTS,STM409 STM401 AD2047 ADL204 - MFS Adelaide 204


Another one??

I had a similar experience as mattb - sent of a perfectly good Samsung with a request for reprogramming only, got a banana Apollo back (actually I don't mind the yellow) with only the original codes on it.

Took two more goes before all programming was completed correctly!!!!!

My understanding is that the repair/programming for the Apollo's is under a different contract to the Samsungs and therefore to save money, the support contract for Samsungs has been terminated to save having two contacts running simultaneously.

Therefore, unless you can find someone on staff who has the skills and equipment to reprogram the Samsungs, you will not get them back no matter what.......

Good luck Euan!

For us, if the page says 42, you get Jervois BW9 with two crew.
If is says 00 you get Jervois 34 with (hopefully) a full crew.

There has been confusion in the past when the 34 has been paged (with a 00) to adjacent areas only to be met with a 'where's the tanker' request when we arrived at the job.  Since then, if possible, we try to contact the relevant IC/OIC at the job to confirm what they actually want (again mainly for out of our area jobs).

Pallamana (approx 10km's north of Murray Bridge) is strategic backup for Woodside as has two strips.
Currently has two 22000 litre tanks full (used by Broomrape mob off season) with a 20-foot shipping container onsite with dozen drums of foam, pumps, hoses etc all inside.

Jervois have the hook-truck with a 9000lt tanker to support.

Training is ongoing within Swanport Group to ensure sufficient resources can be supplied to load the planes.

The recent Meningie fire was an interesting one as all Jervois trucks along with half the Swanport Group appliances went down there and hence support for the airfield was gathered from remaining Jervois members as well as Mypolonga.

Never seen it written down, but could see that there may be a restriction such as that put in place for the vehicle builder to achieve.

Be no good them supplying a vehicle at GVM so the vehicle would be overweight by the time 5 well-built fire fighters got on board, never mind any other equipment and necessary stuff (such as filling the fridge with bottles of water).