SA Firefighter

My company also has an arrangemet for "special" leave (with pay)for 5 or so days a year for emergency work i.e. CFS and SES.
As we are a 24/7 company the conditions are a bit harder to go at the "drop of the hat" if you are on shift, but easer if on just day work.
We have app 35 CFS members from 10 brigades working at the one site.

From the comments posted here it seems several companies, both large and small have similar arrangements in place.
It shows that they do have an appreciation of the service we provide to the community.
They are all to be congratulated for this.

i agree with you Pixie,
It is time we put on a professional front when we represent the CFS.
There was a pager message a few days ago about a brigade attending a meeting and the members were asked to wear their tshirts etc., thats what we need to do, put on a united front to the public.

If we are serious in having the public see us as professionals the least we need is a t/polo shirt that we can wear to meetings/ deployments etc.

Most brigade/ group budgets should be able to accommodate a plan to outfit ALL volunteers with these over a 2 or 3 year time frame. The style and colour well thats a whole different subject.

And when we send units on deployments, lets send our best, ie duel cabs with the "bells and whistles" not the 10+ year old units with crews having to spend many hours on the back while they are there.
I am sure there is by now enough in the state to send without depleting our responce to incidents within SA 

I understand in my group we had 10 or so put their hand up when the call came out for 4 people. In years gone by we had many more do so.

Perhaps it is they cannot get off work or
sick and tired of the hurry up and wait associated with deployments or
they want to "protect their own patch" who knows.

the 4 sent from us would should not effect the responce from the group even though we have brigades with minimal crew levels and respond to jobs with what i think is short crewed (my view only). We would like we do now respond more brigades. (we have many brigades in the group including the Doo)

update on deployment. recieved pager message that only 8 from Pt mac and Gambier going at this time.(region 5)  dont know of others from other regions.

i would go for the 7000lt units as you can get 3 fills for 34 units from them (with the reserve left).

I would go for you going back to school to fill up on Maths.

I know numbers that i am short by 200lt with the comments re the 3 fills but unless the tank level indicators have changed over night to say a 5 sensor unit with a controller that will average the water in the tank to allow for the angle of the tank, then it is up to the pump opperator to make a educated call on the amount of water they have left before they fill up.
All good opperators should then be calling for a fill up before they actually get to the 20% level. (eg if one appliance filled up with 22.2% water left, then the others would have enough water to get a complete fill).

When writing this a couple of other thoughts have cropped up.

the COSO 12 (appliance and crew protection at bushfires) talks about fire fighting appliances need to maintain a minimum 0f 20% water for crew protection.
My question is as the CFS lists BWC as appliances then should these BWC also comply with the 20% crew protection water.I would have thought so especially when they are on the fire ground filling up units that are deployed.
I know this effects my comments re 3 fills from a 7000lt unit but it a point to ponder.

The other point is not in regard to size of BWC but on the 20% figure.
20% water in a
34 is 600lt for crew protection of up to 6 people
24 is 400lt for up to the same number of crew
14 is 200lt for up to the same number of crew

With the tankers say a 7000lt unit 20% is 1400lt for probably 2 crew protection.
another area to review?

re the type of pump used, i don't care either way as long as what ever is used is reliable and easy to use.

it will be a stop call for robert again, these are the ones we like

1909376 18:17:18 24-01-09 MFS: *CFSRES INC060 24/01/09 18:18,RESPOND DOMESTIC FIRE,5 NURIOOTPA CFS,NURIOOTPA MAP 0 0 0 TG095,ASSIST NURI 5 SANDALWOOD CRT NURI,TANT00 CFS Tantanoola Response

   Tantanoola probably wanted to try out some different wine, sick and tired of the fine wines from Coonawarra. Watch out brigades south of Adelaide eg Blackfellows Creak, Blackfellows Caves might come up next for your wines(i know they have been paged before instead of Blackfellows Creak)