Quick response

[pete]

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?

[6739264]

Exactly, why not adopt the CFA model - It makes sense.

[uniden]

CFA model? Most of the suburbs around melbourne are MFB areas. Maybe we need some more MFS stations on Adelaides outskirts..

[6739264]

Yes, but some of the larger urban areas outside of the CBD are CFA. As well as the rural areas.

[chook]

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.

[bittenyakka]

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.

[chook]

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

[Firefrog]

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

[bittenyakka]

well yeah great on paper. but so was the soviet union

or mabey a paid group admin officer who did that kind of work for brigades?

time for a new thread i think

[safireservice]

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?"

[chook]

 
cheers

[uniden]

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]

[6739264]

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.

[Zippy]

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.

[chook]

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 And also full time crew justifying their continued employment.
Anyway good luck with it - you will need it!
cheers

[Zippy]

.   (excuse my tiredness )

[Firefrog]

Quote from Uniden

Are you suggesting paid CFS firies would be paid less than MFS ones?

Not at all! 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.

[Alan J]

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".

[pumprescue]

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.

[rescue5271]

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......

[fireblade]

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!

[uniden]

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.

[safireservice]

None of the MFS appliances that attended Brownhill Creek were 4wd, exect if you cound the command vehicle.

[SA Firey]

Thats right it was a Pumper Strike Team for asset protection

[rescue5271]

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...