SA Firefighter

By the sounds of it, very little is really going to change, despite the notion of an SOP.

Clearly R1 has vastly different capabilities to say R5.
(eg we don't have grn radios in brigade stations, only group bases, and very few brigades have surplus crew to leave behind anyway. 24Pumper makes a good point about some R1 groups getting 900 calls a year.)

So why continue to maintain the pretence of a statewide SOP?
It seems (from this end of the state anyway!) that R1 by and large has much different requirements of Adelaide Fire than R5 (and probably all other regions too).

I hope the resources have been provided at Adelaide fire to service the fire season.

Don't know where you can buy them from. Mine was a present from Region HQ at a recent seminar. I'd ask them.

....soo  why not just see WHEN the pager goes...how many people rock up...?

I am GUESSING that page was sent becuase a fire ban was declared, and no one (or not enough) has bothered to let the BDO know if they're available. (I'm also assuming it's a statewide practise to have a radio sched on a fire ban day?)

If you think about why those scheds exisist - so the group (GOs, DGOs, captains etc) have an accurate idea of what resources area available in the instance of an incident, it strikes me as quite fair to give the brigade a rev for being a bit slack.

Waiting ten minutes after a page has gone out to discover that a brigade has no crew is unneccessary on a high fire risk day. Similarly, if you know a neighbouring brigade is low on numbers you can make a conscious effort to fill your own truck, with the knowledge that you'll lose a couple of crew when you reach the fireground.

Lots of good reasons to have a fire ban sched. Bit harder getting crew to keep you informed!

When I called the other day, all the operator asked was "which service do you require?"

No location was requested by the 000 operator. I was calling from a fixed phone though.
I don't know whether they are yet able to tell where you're calling from if on a mobile.

A joint CFS / CFA group training day will take place . . . . .

Three or so of these days will take place along the border this year.
The one Bill mentions for Naracoorte Group, one near Donovans/Nelson (I think, certainly somewhere adjacent to the Mt Gambier/Pt Mac Group), and another for the Wattle Range Group around Lake Mundi on Nov 25th.

The latter will include as many fire fighting groups as possible - CFS, CFA, FSA, DEH, DSE etc (love my acronyms!). I hope the forest industry brigades are included, but am unsure.
Exercises on cross-border comms, plumbing between trucks, and forestry hose lay will be covered.

I think it will be a very worthwhile day.

Cut & pasted most of an email from Andy Lawson, arrived to me via SAVFBA so many of you will have seen it. Can send the attched document if anyone cares to see it.


----- Original Message -----
From: Lawson, Andrew (CFS)
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 12:19 PM
Subject: Statewide Talkgroups

There has been a considerable amount of discussion recently regarding a proposal that CFS may be moving to one (1) Statewide Talkgroup for all CRD functions (ie GRN 11 for the acknowledgment of Response Messages).

I/we have listen very carefully to this debate and have prepared the attached memo to ensure all Brigades / Groups / Regions and staff are aware of the current situation.

Thus, please be advised that the proposal to move all CRD traffic (ie: pager acknowledgements) to GRN 111 has been suspended indefinitely.  Until COAC have had an opportunity to consider an updated proposal and make a recommendation to the Chief Officer - Brigades, Groups and Regions are asked to use their Regional Talkgroups to acknowledge Response Messages as per the existing procedure.

Regions, please feel free to share this memo with all Group Officers / Groups and Brigades. Additional information and a more detailed updated proposal will be circulated via COAC in the near future.

<<Regional - State Talkgroups.pdf>>

Kind Regards,

ANDREW LAWSON AFSM
Deputy Chief Officer
South Australian Country Fire Service

. . . I can see why they get frustrated though, boy oh boy do we woffle !! "nuff nuff 24 out on 30 k run" cutting over the top of incident traffic, good one! So they are strongly pushing for the smaller amount of TG's. Its not anyone's fault out there, you don't know someone is talking, but you will with the new arrangement.

Fair enough, one talkgroup will allow MFS Commcen to monitor all radio traffic, by ensuring woffle doesn't counter important traffic.

However when it gets busy, as it will, there will be traffic from the EP broadcast across the south east (and every point between), and vice-versa.
Towers WILL tie up. Maybe not in the hills (I don't know), but certainly in the regions.

We shift from a limiting factor of too few operators to handle traffic, to too few frequencies on the towers.

I agree there is woffle and some damn inefficient communicators on the radio.
But I also believe putting all acknowledgement, response & return comms on to one talkgroup will overload the system. 

We get enough tower tie-ups as it is. Increasing the chance of that happening does not excite me.

In a similar fashion to what is proposed, R5 used to all respond on the regional talkgroup, then change to group TGs. It didn't work - the towers got clogged during busy periods and traffic was not getting through.

Now the page is acknowledged on the regional TG, then all comms (should) be conducted on group TGs. Including appliance responding etc. That way, neighbouring groups at least know if there's a job on next door which may require assistance, but otherwise it limits the grn usage to a couple of towers.

This may not be such an issue (I don't know) in R1 where each tower presumably has more frequencies.

However we already have problems on busy days in this neck of the woods with towers blocking up. We really don't need to know what appliances are doing a couple of groups away, much less in the next region, and more importantly it will compromise our own communications.

Fortunately our group bases open pretty quickly in most instances (R5 in general), so the groups are used to being self sufficient in that manner.


Frankly I can't see much changing. Gary Bau indicated recently that it is fine for a group base/GO to monitor appliance movements, and notify Adelaide Fire (so as I see it, once a handful of appliances are on the go, Adelaide fire will be contact and told 'x,y,z appliances on the go').

So really, R1 can keep using Adelaide fire as they do, the other regions can keep operating as they do and once again we've got different ways across the state!

RC mentioned last night that Oz is sending 8 people over, including a fire prevention officer.

If you've got a passport & a hint of spanish, stick your hand up! That ought to be a easy job for a while (after the fire's out).

ola.

So for a police officer to drive their vehicles.... a commodore sedan you need to do two weeks of intensive driver training I believe but in the CFS / SES you can turn up and drive a 12 ton truck lights and sirens purely because you have your license??? Anyone else find this a bit odd.....

Yes.

Integrated Tree Cropping.

Blue gum MIS company.

I'm pretty sure you will find she had no medication with her so they pulled her off and organised some and then she was able to go back on to the fire ground for the rest of her deployment. it was more the safety reasons of what would happen if they didn't act when thye had the knowledge of her allergies.

That would be the logical answer, but she stated (through the oic of her appliance who was on the radio) that she had oodles of supplies.

The bloke ordering the appliance back to the staging area didn't seem to care . . . simply said they were to leave the fire ground.