SA Firefighter
General Discussion => Country Fire Service => Topic started by: pete on January 20, 2008, 05:16:04 PM
-
I believe if the Government was willing to fund high risk urban fire danger areas with a couple of paid day time drivers/officers,then the impact of the situation may be greatly reduced.Its time the CFS and SAFECOM had a chat.What do you think?
-
Exactly, why not adopt the CFA model - It makes sense.
-
CFA model? Most of the suburbs around melbourne are MFB areas. Maybe we need some more MFS stations on Adelaides outskirts..
-
Yes, but some of the larger urban areas outside of the CBD are CFA. As well as the rural areas.
-
Sorry have to agree with Uniden - payed = SAMFS. Otherwise you end up with another level of complexity.
Also if you are going to have payed CFS why both with retained SAMFS?
The NSW model seems to make more sense - full time + retained NSWFB, vollies = RFS.
-
err adelaide is much smaller than Melborne take the east there is st20 st44 and Glynde and soon the be Bulea Park. and any further east the is the hills with Norton summit, Green hill, Burnside, Stirling and Belair, and they all do a good job in their respective areas. i cant comment on the north and south but i believe they are well balanced.
But i fully support going for a more similar to the CFA model as these days the more senior roles are becoming more and more about paperwork and admin which i believe is preventing some great leaders from taking up these positions and restricting it ti the same old crew that have done it for ages and are unable to stop because there is no one else to fill those roles.
Chook
Combinations stations are a great idea as they a) cost less and b) volunteers are still a major part of the service.
-
But do they? From what I've heard there is "issues" between the full time "professionals" + the volunteers & then there is the Linton enquiry which pointed out that even though the full time officer had done plenty of courses may have lacked practical experience.
And yes it is getting harder to get officers to fill positions, we are having similar issues - they want administrators as well as operational managers.
But who knows it might be a good model for you guys.
cheers
-
Sorry have to agree with Uniden - payed = SAMFS. Otherwise you end up with another level of complexity.
Also if you are going to have payed CFS why both with retained SAMFS?
The NSW model seems to make more sense - full time + retained NSWFB, vollies = RFS.
I think the reverse is true, paid SACFS could prevent complexity. IF SACFS paid crews are working alongside SACFS volunteer crews, they would be intimately aware of SACFS arrangements, procedures and internal workings. Another paid agency eg SAMFS can never hope to achieve this level of understanding IMO....
Are you suggesting SAMFS rural stations with rural/urban trucks????
A better way is to staff existing stations and trucks with small crews of SACFS. The community get an affordable and reliable response and avoid overly expensive trucks and a very hefty wages bill. IMO
-
well yeah great on paper. but so was the soviet union :wink:
or mabey a paid group admin officer who did that kind of work for brigades?
time for a new thread i think
-
Sorry have to agree with Uniden - payed = SAMFS.
Why does nearly everyone have this fixation with paid = MFS? As far as i cant see they are'nt the be all and end all in firefighting. As someone said on another thread there are some paid firefighters out there that are complete shockers. And anyway, who says the CFS doesnt have paid firefighters? Look at your regional staff that do air obs, they are assisting to fight the fire, so arent they "paid firefighters?"
-
:wink:
cheers
-
I think the reverse is true, paid SACFS could prevent complexity. IF SACFS paid crews are working alongside SACFS volunteer crews, they would be intimately aware of SACFS arrangements, procedures and internal workings. Another paid agency eg SAMFS can never hope to achieve this level of understanding IMO....
Are you suggesting SAMFS rural stations with rural/urban trucks????
A better way is to staff existing stations and trucks with small crews of SACFS. The community get an affordable and reliable response and avoid overly expensive trucks and a very hefty wages bill. IMO
Are you suggesting paid CFS firies would be paid less than MFS ones?
[/quote]
-
Chook, what is more cost effective and less disruptive?
The Victorian model: having a couple, or a whole crew of paid persons at a station to get the first appliance out the door quickly, and to deal with paperwork/admin. The volunteers still stay and serve the station.
The NSW model: Every brigade that does rescue/Hazmat/BA is turned into rural only, and replaced with a SAMFS retained station. CFS loses a huge chunk of its workload and becomes rural/support only. Do you know how much that would cost? Having to build a huge number of new stations, new appliances, and find new crew that meets a standard.
-
The Victorian model: having a couple, or a whole crew of paid persons at a station to get the first appliance out the door quickly, and to deal with paperwork/admin. The volunteers still stay and serve the station.
SA just needs to get past the barrier of having paid people working with volunteers (aka hardcore politics) in the same station.
-
Yep both of you guys have a fair point, however do you really think that full time staff would be happy spending a whole shift in a tin shed? Having just had full time staff move into our station, a number of changes were made to accommodate them. And there is a few more to come.
And yep the NSW model may not suit SA, the emegency service set up is a bit different there. However the Vics have also spent a lot building new stations for CFA. Finally though as Zippy said you would have to get past all of the political stuff & the unions would have to be happy having their members doing the same work as unpaid - remember one of the goals of the union movement is increasing their membership :wink: And also full time crew justifying their continued employment.
Anyway good luck with it - you will need it!
cheers
-
. (excuse my tiredness ;))
-
Quote from Uniden Are you suggesting paid CFS firies would be paid less than MFS ones?
Not at all! 8-) but rather than a full 4 person crew 24/7, working a 2 day 2 night 4off cycle, i could imagine a day crew scenario that may provide a saving. :-)
-
I believe if the Government was willing to fund high risk urban fire danger areas with a couple of paid day time drivers/officers,then the impact of the situation may be greatly reduced.Its time the CFS and SAFECOM had a chat.What do you think?
Biggest structural issue of putting on full-timers is whether one of them becomes the permanent career station officer - abolish elected captains (legislation change required) - or at other extreme, treat them as ordinary members who are there 40hrs/week & do the admin & organising & local running around. Perhaps the second biggest issue is that these paid f/fs would be UFU members, requiring substantial upgrades to station amenities to make them suitable.
A possible step prior to employing full-timers:
Warringah/Pittwater NSWRFS district have their "Warringah Flyer". All brigades in the district are expected to contribute members to a daily in-station standby for one immediate-response appliance. It goes to all calls in the district in addition to the local brigade. I believe a lot of volunteer departments in the Americas & Europe do a similar thing. Could work well for Groups like maybe Sturt or Heysen, maybe not at all for some others. Members might be expected to contribute 1 day per x months as a condition of membership. I recall reading that at least one metro Melbourne CFA all-volunteer brigade with >700 response calls per year was doing much the same.
Some CFA stations actually have two brigades in them, eg. Swan Hill. A Paid/retained brigade with a career or "career retained" structure, station officer and f/fs. Plus an administratively separate volunteer brigade with similar structure to a CFS brigade. To some extent they share vehicles, although each has its "own".
-
There is only 1 CFA brigade that still runs seperate brigades in 1 station being urban and a rural, and that is Swan Hill, but they are still totally volunteer.
CFA man stations not trucks, so you will find some with only 2 paid staff, some with 7 or 8. They don't wait for vols to rock up, they simply respond as any normal paid station. I personally think this is a false economy, 2 FF's isn't a fire crew, and you have to assume the vols are going to rock up. The big difference with the CFA is the BASO, they help with the paperwork side of things, but unlike CFS, the CFA have 1 for every few brigades in the busy area's, where as CFS have 1 per region, and to be honest I have never seen ours and wouldn't know who it is !! So clearly not much use for those of us in volly land.
I think most vols would be happy to run 4 or 500 calls if all they had to do was go to the calls and train, the paperwork and politics is what causes the burnout.
-
The problem is we need more volunteers to join the service,Sure the CFA system works well in Victoria but you have to remember they have lots of MONEY and have more risks than we do when it comes to large country towns.CFA staff work with volunteers in country and CBD stations yes CFA is in the CBD point cook station is well with in the CBD...Till the MFS get more mann power there will never be paid staff with CFS as firefighters. CFS needs to remove the number of members a brigade can have and may be set up a roster system like barker have.... But then again just get a couple more skycranes as the public think that is all we need to protect them from fire...... :roll:
-
I see no drama with paid CFS stations why hand over it to the MFS when we should be striving to push our service to a higher level. That way you would have paid CFS staff that know how CFS operates at rural fires plus the ability to respond to incidents requiring BA and RCR.
If you said let MFS take over those busy CFS stations and return CFS to just rural fire fighting your retention of volunteers would go down hill due to the less number of incidents they would attend loosing interest. Plus you would have to train MFS how to fight rural fires and drive 4x4 appliances.
I'm currently at a CFS station that has had a mix of paid CFS, paid MFS, paid industrial fire fighters and everybody gets along well.
Does not matter if a service has a mix of paid, retained or full-time as you are all there to put the wet stuff on the red stuff!
-
MFS stations a;ready have 4x4 appliances and fight rural fires. Its part of their training. See the list of appliances that attended Brownhill Creek as well as the MFS firies that have attended NSW deployments etc.
-
None of the MFS appliances that attended Brownhill Creek were 4wd, exect if you cound the command vehicle.
-
Thats right it was a Pumper Strike Team for asset protection
-
From my understanding the CFS did ask last year if they could have paid stations with a mix of staff and volunteers and the minister said no....and that cfs would never have paid firefighters...
-
I've meet the minister she came out to our station one day she has not got a clue about Emergency Services in this state.
She spent the whole time being told about things by us or one of her advisers.
I don't think CFS has put a proper submission forward to the minister but I could be wrong.
The only 4x4 appliance MFS have are their little 14's (ROSA) and as for the NSW campaign MFS guys were split up onto CFS appliances and only drove if they have been in the CFS with experience in driving the then Hino appliances!
-
I've meet the minister she came out to our station one day she has not got a clue about Emergency Services in this state.
She spent the whole time being told about things by us or one of her advisers.
I don't think CFS has put a proper submission forward to the minister but I could be wrong.
i believe that you are probably very correct with those statements.
just have to hope the next emergency service's nuffer will have a bit more of a clue of what actually goes on...
-
I've meet the minister she came out to our station one day she has not got a clue about Emergency Services in this state.
She spent the whole time being told about things by us or one of her advisers.
I don't think CFS has put a proper submission forward to the minister but I could be wrong.
The only 4x4 appliance MFS have are their little 14's (ROSA) and as for the NSW campaign MFS guys were split up onto CFS appliances and only drove if they have been in the CFS with experience in driving the then Hino appliances!
Ummmm, think they have a few more 4x4's than that, but yeah anyway.
The guy from MFS on my truck had never been on a CFS truck in his life, we gave him a quick run down, he had driven the 4x4 Hino's MFS had, so was more than capable.
-
To me on one hand the MFS say we specialise in structure fires and the CFS specialise in grass/bush fires,so i find it hard to grasp whenever there is talk of a need for payed Firefighters the MFS want to do both???
-
MFS stations in the country have 4x4 appliances. There are the ROSA`s as well as 4x4 medium pumps in stations like Renmark, Port Lincoln etc. Like I said MFS firefighters are trained to fight rural fires.
-
I know i work for the MFS,not every one in the MFS is trained.
-
Be realistic.....fighting fire is not rocket science! we take average joes off the street give them a weekend course then throw them on the front line....
be they mfs or cfs they are more than capable to fight both rural or urban fires with the correct training.
we say mfs specialise in urban and cfs in rural but realistically you throw either service into a situation and they will deal with it.
-
I know i work for the MFS,not every one in the MFS is trained.
Well they should be. I do too and I am trained.
-
This might seem like a stupid question but:-
a) if SAMFS can fight rural fires & CFS can combat structural fires
b) there is SAMFS in rural areas & CFS in metro/semi metro areas
c) and some SAMFS volunteer with CFS & some CFS want to get paid
d and CFS has urban appliances & SAMFS has off road/ rural appliances
Why do we have two fire services?
I know there is historical reasons but are those reasons still valid?
Seems to me that you guys are basically think that small paid quick attack teams are a good idea - its just who will staff them.
And the comments about the latest minister may be true thats why she has advisors & who advisers the advisors - our senior officers (including CEO's of the three services), so therefore don't be so surprised if she does not have the full picture.
cheers
-
SA is very much history/tradition focused.
-
To quote an MFS Station Officer "We only have two seasons,House Fire Season and Grass Fire Season" :-D
-
Roll on the ministerial reshuffel,Bye Bye minister Zollo and Brad hopefully.
-
Hear Hear to that!
-
To quote an MFS Station Officer "We only have two seasons,House Fire Season and Grass Fire Season" :-D
You forgot 'false alarm' season - oh hang on, that's all year round :-D
-
To quote an MFS Station Officer "We only have two seasons,House Fire Season and Grass Fire Season" :-D
You forgot 'false alarm' season - oh hang on, that's all year round :-D
Well you would know :lol:
-
Be realistic.....fighting fire is not rocket science! we take average joes off the street give them a weekend course then throw them on the front line....
damn...and here I was thinking I could join a metro fringe CFS unit because I can spell and pronounce phrases like:
"wet stuff on the hot stuff"
"water on"
"water off"
:evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:
-
Totally disagree with your statement COMP00.
Don’t know what game you guys play at your station but once our guys complete their BFF1 they are not fed to the lions! They are always mentored by Senior Fire Fighters or senior members at training and incidents so they are learning the right stuff and safely and only one probie is allowed on each appliance to an incident.
Once the Captain is content with their development then they loose the probationary statue and become Fire Fighters.
See COMP00 if you did join one of those urban fringe brigades you would learn phrases like skills development & skills maintenance.
By the way under the FGP's it's "Turn on" and "Knock off"
-
Totally disagree with your statement COMP00.
Don’t know what game you guys play at your station but once our guys complete their BFF1 they are not fed to the lions! They are always mentored by Senior Fire Fighters or senior members at training and incidents so they are learning the right stuff and safely and only one probie is allowed on each appliance to an incident.
Once the Captain is content with their development then they loose the probationary statue and become Fire Fighters.
See COMP00 if you did join one of those urban fringe brigades you would learn phrases like skills development & skills maintenance.
By the way under the FGP's it's "Turn on" and "Knock off"
Hey fair enough...it was a generic statement. You have to remember the CFS is mostly made up of rural brigades and not well trained, high callout city fringe brigades and my statement rings true in alot of those brigades.
-
Totally disagree with your statement COMP00.
Don’t know what game you guys play at your station but once our guys complete their BFF1 they are not fed to the lions! They are always mentored by Senior Fire Fighters or senior members at training and incidents so they are learning the right stuff and safely and only one probie is allowed on each appliance to an incident.
Once the Captain is content with their development then they loose the probationary statue and become Fire Fighters.
See COMP00 if you did join one of those urban fringe brigades you would learn phrases like skills development & skills maintenance.
By the way under the FGP's it's "Turn on" and "Knock off"
You've gotta agree tho that no level of training really truly prepares you for a big fire....
-
If we can train and mentor probational CFS members to fight bushfires, why can't we train and mentor experienced SAMFS fire fighters? Then they can take over, and we can go back to our jobs and families while they risk their lives for us...
I think paid CFS fire fighters could work well in quite a few urban fringe brigades, but I would only ever suggest a 8-5 shift, there is no need at all for 24/7 manning.
-
Yep totaly agree
-
Agree CFS_Firey that some busy CFS urban fringe brigades could have paid day staff but I'm sure that there are some large regional areas that could benefit from it as well.
The way the system is now it's all over the show where there is CFS vol stations doing more calls than MFS retained, that sometimes have the same day time crewing issues as CFS.
I think SAFECOM need to have a better strategic plan in place that aids the tactical response of both services, or maybe South Australia has just one service "South Australian Fire & Emergency Services" Where there is a tiered system once a vounteer brigade becomes to busy it changes to retained to assist its staff remunerate the cost of going to the station all the time and other associated costs. Then once the station is extremely busy it becomes full-time all of this would obviously take time and development of local areas before it changed a stations status due to population density.
Another spin off of this is maybe the government could be able to cut down on Regional officers and District officers where the two overlap in areas (not 100% sure there!). One dedicated training department instead of two and I’m sure other departments may be duplicated in both services.
Just a reflection!
-
Mate a totally brilliant plan!
And following on from the Lead agency model - there is some other areas of duplication that could be removed as well, at least at the higher levels.
Congratulations you have shown us a future that will deliver best practice service delivery to the state at a price it can afford.
Now for the bad news:-
There would be a need to remove the politics (internal & external)out of it!
There would also be a need for individuals/ groups to forget the past and move forward, can this be done? Can the services handle the shock without compromising service delivery?
There would need to be an honest Risk assessment, capability audit & if required additional funding accross the whole state - not just Adelaide.
Here is a bit out of the QLD Act that deals with Combined "Emergency Service Units"
The functions of an ES unit are any of the following functions the
chief executive considers appropriate for the unit—
(a) an SES function;
(b) fire fighting or fire prevention.
(2) To decide the functions of an ES unit, the chief executive must have
regard to the following—
(a) the needs of the community in the emergency service area for the
unit;
(b) whether the members of the unit have the abilities to competently
perform the functions;
(c) the resources available to the unit;
(d) whether the unit can appropriately maintain the equipment
necessary for the unit to perform the functions.
If we are looking at such a major change to the Fire services, then something like the above should be considered at the same time.
Having spent time reading the QLD Act it has opened my eyes, to the future which as long as due consideration to the whole state & all the different emergergencies (not just fire) is given then it could be a good thing :wink:
cheers