SA Firefighter

Every thing is pass/fail, if you can't do it - bad luck, no bending for anyone.

Except PAT 2...

It concerns me that so many of the questions asked here in this thread are easily answered if you read the information that SAMFS provide on their website.

If you want to apply for a job, one would think that at the very least you would be well versed with the requirements?

Arthur's Infralog is a so much better publication in every way.
Maybe every section within CFS should be required to publish a similar report.
Training, Ops, Regions, Air Ops, etc, etc.

Maybe same for Groups - possibly to be amalgamated into regional reports for the
purposes of the mag. Also quarterly incident summary/stats out of AIRS.

Gizmos & gadgets page for things which make the job easier. Still got to get brigades to write in about them. However I bet here's a lot of good gadgets out there which haven't got HQ Equipment's stamp of approval on them,so they won't advertise...

The newsletters that started to be published by each specialist area were good... until 99% of them fell down after one issue. There was some great information in them and it felt like you actually knew where training and course roll outs were upto. "We haven't been able to do xyz because we've done abc" is fantastic.

Quote from: pumprescue on March 14, 2011, 06:27:34 PM

I would tell him I don't want to be in the CFS. But I am part of my local volunteer fire brigade to protect my loved ones. The CFS is so much of a joke that I don't associate with the name.

My crews are under trained, under resourced and pretty much fed up.

Well said.

It would be nice to have some resources put into the urban side of the CFS.  Having more training positions would be a good start, (so BA can be a standard qualification rather than a luxury), but ideally I'd like to see better equipment (especially) for busy urban brigades.

If we were able to get the basic, minimum urban and rescue kit rolled out, that would make me a very happy man.

The "Country" Part of the CFS seems to be going rather well, its just the "Fire Service" part that isn't so much...

Well the staff that I am talking about are in the UFU and work in regional offices..

Just quietly Bill, page 10 of the UFUA Rules would like a quick word, specifically this part:

(e) (12) (4) Any person employed in South Australia:

(a) by the Country Fire Services; or
(b) as technical officer, technical assistant, and caretaker by the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service

shall not be eligible for membership of the Union.

Most fire appliances will require an MR at a minimum. Some of the 14's and QAV's will need only a C class. Then again, some of the larger tankers will need a HR. I believe a 34P would weight around the 12ton mark, depending on its stowage kit, not 110% though.

I think this a bad move.  Starting up a CABA set at an incident in no way proves that an operator is still a competent BA operator.  The purpose of an annual, (or 5 yearly), re-accreditation is to ensure BA operators are still donning and starting up correctly and still know the correct procedures for safety and equipment maintenance.  Do they really think a tick in a box on a fire reports proves an operator is competent and removes a need for them to be assessed?

I would have hoped that it would be more geared toward ensuring that operators are actually wearing at incidents, thus if a person claims to have worn at every job a brigade has had in the past year, according to their little operator book, it can be confirmed/denied in TAS. It would be nice to be able to log 3 monthly training wears in this fashion too. God forbid if we had to actually log what we all did for training. That could destroy some Brigades. But I digress, I don't think, as CFS_Firey had said, that operational use and re-accreditation should EVER mix. They are two very different entities. How many Brigades/Operators do we know that have been doing xyz for 1000 years, but their knowledge and skills base is horribly out of date?

I'm also curious about the definition of RCR and HAZMAT operators...
"HAZMAT OPERATOR - Actually used hazmat equipment at a hazmat incident".  So if I turn on the PID at a house fire, does that make me a Haz Op?
"RCR OPERATOR - Actually used RCR equipment at the incident". If I use a haligan to pop a bonnet at a car fire am I an RCR Op?  All seems a bit vague...

As for equipment used, it depends on your definitions really... Is a Gas Detector Hazmat equipment? It can be used for a variety of things, and detecting for an IDLH atmosphere is not necessarily Hazmat. In the same way that CABA is used in an IDLH atmosphere, but would you call it Hazmat gear? A Halligan most certainly isn't RCR equipment either. Both examples are stowed on appliances that are normal "General Purpose" fire appliances, so that further muddies the waters... Are we looking at the primary role of the equipment or the context in which it is used?

Again, haven't we been filling out fire reports for years?  Is the inclusion of some extra details about an alarm call really going to get us extra funding or cut down on false alarms?  You can already get the stats from the previous version of the forms - if it says we went to an alarm, it means it was an unwanted alarm, if it legit, we'd put it down as a fire...

But then a "legit" alarm is not necessarily a fire...

Again, simulated condition is an example of an alarm operating correctly. Unwanted, yes, legit, yes. What the gathering of further stats can do, in terms of false alarm reduction is demonstrate where the problem lies. Is it faulty equip? Is it occupier error? Can we curtail the number of false alarms with some basic fire alarm education? Do we need to suggest that the building change the location/type of detectors? Without detector location/cause information this is impossible. How many allegedly "faulty" smoke alarms are there in CFS at the moment? An impossibly large number, as simulated condition/contractor negligence tends to go down as "Alarm Fault".

As for extra funding, etc, we can now track exactly WHO does WHAT. It just helps again, to build a case for the future. If you have busy brigades that are always using their equipment, then perhaps they will need a larger equipment replacement budget, etc etc...

As well as the mistakes Matt already pointed now, there seem to be quite a few other fields that are vague or confusing. 
For example,

Who is the "Officer in Charge"?

Does "Spare cylinders used" really mean spares used, or total used? 

"Charge code: Yes/No" How do we answer that? 

"Name of Brigade/Station/Unit who conducted Rescue".  What counts as the rescue?  If the RCR brigade cuts up the car, but then the local brigade carries the stretcher to the ambulance, is that a team effort? 

Or the fact you only get to choose one type of mobile property for an incident, but can enter details for 3 vehicles...

I'm also curios as to why lowercase and uppercase options are mixed.  Is there a difference between them?

As per CFS SOP, the whole thing appears to have been publicly released very early in the development stage. I hope someone didn't get paid or seconded to produce this. It is appalling. Poorly edited, not proofread, sloppy use of upper/lowercase. (much like this post...)

"Charge Code" is easy, there is a list of the 700 codes (sit found for AFA's) that list which ones are chargeable... do we plebs on the fire trucks get this? Of course not...

"Name of Brigade/Station/Unit who conducted Rescue" perhaps if we look at a definition of rescue? I'd wager that it is the brigade/station/unit that actually removed the person from danger, rather than those that walked them to the meat wagon.

Another question, why the use of IN/OUT (of your Brigades fire response area)? What happens if you arrive into another brigades area first, give them a stop? Who does the report? Why can't we use "First Arrival" and "Attended" that way, the first arriving (and in theory IC) takes the details and does the report. Also goes to show who actually gets to where first. Not to mention that we only track arrival times of agencies and not individual appliances - no way to ensure that each brigade is meeting required response times (although this really only applies to Rescue brigades that have response times specified)

If in the "Incident/Activity Response Attendance Record" it tell us to only place the details of "You brigade only" does this mean that Group Officers have to do ANOTHER report?

Why under roles do we have SFF (even though it is "not an assigned role at present time") and not have Lt/Capt? One would have thought rank information is contained under the rank heading in the Attendance Report?

C'mon CFS, is it THAT HARD to do something properly the first time? Have some pride, grow up and try to become a real Fire Service...

Hmm....

I'm not entirely convinced that those people above us are doing the right thing by us. Why do we still not have access to ALL the AIRS codes? Why do we only get a select few that someone determines 'will be enough'?

We still have "322 - MVA w/Injuries" This being an EMS code that is no use to 99% of CFS brigades. Yet 99% of Brigades list that for any MVA that has someone transported.

Looking beyond that to common calls such as AFA's, we have four options:

FALSE CALL - NO FIRE/NO TESTING
FALSE CALL - ON SITE WORK PRACTICES
FALSE CALL - TESTING/MAINTAINENCE BY COMPANY
FIRE/INCIDENT

What then is a detector activated due to burnt food/hairspray/incense? Simulated condition is NOT a false call, the detector is working as intended. There are PLENTY of codes to cover all forms of activation.

Not to mention, Basements do not exist in CFS AIRS land. The lowest floor you can have an alarm activated on is the Ground floor.

Come one CFS, its not hard, it's a handful of text to put into the document, I'll happily do it for you over a weekend. For free. All things mentioned above are easily edited in... I guess thats where my next weekend will go.

For those complaining, stats are the best way to increase your funding... show the Govt. how much work we are actually doing. If we get stats to back us up we can actually achieve things! Get those false alarms reduced, have a solid argument as to why xyz Brigade needs xyz truck/specialisation/SFEC increase.

So has anyone else seen the new air's reporting forms and what do you think of them??? We have gone from 2 pages to 8 pages to fill in,I cant see brigade's filling these in as Volunteers just want to get back to work ASAP after a call out....

Firstly, it's AIRS. No need for that errant apostrophy. God help you if you can't fill out 8 pages. AIRS forms aren't hard to fill out, they don't take that long do they? Drop down boxes are hard to use though...

Have the CFS actually started to take note of things like the type and use of building/vehicle, location of detectors, type of detectors, ignition source etc etc?

Don't forget, floors above ground are prefixed with an "A" those below ground get a  "B"

Oops...

SOP 4.9 "Cannabis Burns"

Mentions "upwind/uphill" and "...don't stand in the smoke..." quite frequently!

As I understand it the National medal is awarded after 15 years diligent service, it concerns me that it then gets left to a couple of volunteers in a brigade to grant it.  Surely there is a way this can be flagged on TAS some how at least.

Why make it automatically flag you on TAS when the award may not be deserved? The national medal should be earned, not a "Thanks for having your name on the books for 15 years" sticker.

16-02-11 11:38:42 MFS: *CFSRES INC037 16/02/11 11:37,RESPOND RCR,MINCHINBURY TCE,MARION MAP 141 D 12 TG182,TRAIN V PEDESTRIAN,UNKNOWN IF TRAPPED,MARION RWY STATION,ADL204 CPK411 CAR041 AD2027

It's 2011 and Adelaide Fire is still unable to turnout an appropriate incident type. Is the CRD system THAT hard to manage? Will things really get better with SACAD? I pity our poor comms operators who have to work with a scheiße system with illogical limits on incident types.