Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - mattb

Pages: [1]
1
SA Firefighter General / Priority 1 driving standards
« on: September 06, 2010, 12:33:49 PM »
Had to laugh this morning at the BRT appliance belting through the middle of the city on the way to a job, driver steering with one hand whilst drinking his coffee in the other, also crashed a set of red lights whilst barely slowing down.

I know in my brigade we take driving fairly seriously, red lights are treated as a stop sign and you only proceeded through after coming to a stop (or rolling stop if you like). And I know from personal experience that you need to be concentrating the whole time, looking our for the unexpected clown that pulls out of a road or driveway into your path (I've had a very, very close call with this one so am even more paranoid about idiots now).

Just wonder what other people think about driving ?

How much training do you do in your brigade and who approves your drivers to be capable of Priority One driving ?

Interested to hear other brigades / services processes.

2
SA Firefighter General / 2009 / 2010 State Budget
« on: June 05, 2009, 12:36:54 AM »
Someone smarter than me and with an interest in economics put together a bit of a summary on how we all fared in the state budget today, I thought it might interest some of you.

It was put together fairly quickly and was really meant to be notes so don't complain about the spelling and lack of punctuation.

Quote
As you know the State Budget was handed down today. To save those of you who are
slightly more sane than I am the fun of reading it yourself here are my
notes that I took as I read it. Now there are no guarantees on the accuracy
of what I wrote, if you're interested in a quick brief go for my notes, if
you're into the nitty gritty, hit the Treasury website.

Now having written the notes I will write a quick summary of the summary
because even the notes get quite lengthy!

Firstly, the only mention of anything related to us in the summary
documents was the GRN upgrade ($101 million to be spent over four years
upgrading it), so we certainly weren't a focus area, so no big
announcements of wonderful things for us.  :(

CFS did well last year and both spent less than we were supposed to AND
earned more than we were supposed to, so big pat on the back for us. We
have been given slightly more money for next year, but probably not a great
deal more after you take into account the fact things are more expensive
than they used to be, so we will likely be in about the same situation next
year as we have been this year. Next year we have been told we are allowed
to spend $2.2 million more, however $1 million of this will go on increased
GRN charges, $0.8 million will go on the fact things (including staff
wages) just cost more with inflation and $0.3 million will be our
contribution towards the continuation of the Bushfire CRC.

MFS on the other hand overspent significantly (almost $4 million - although
this is still only about 5% of their budget) mostly on wages (they somehow
ended up with 903 staff when they had only budgeted for 885, and they
approved a nice new pay agreement with their staff, effective January 1)
and their income wasn't much more than the government expected it to be.
They shouldn't have the same problem next year because they are allowed to
spend $9 million more next year (almost a 10% increase), however they are
only expected to bring in $200,000 more in income. Almost all of this extra
money will go towards paying for the improved Enterprise Bargaining
Agreement with their current staff, and the fact their staff numbers are
set to increase by another 22 from where they are now.

So no influx of new trucks or new stations, just keep doing what we're
doing, and because everything is a bit more expensive these days we will be
given more money to buy what we are already buying, and because MFS
fire-fighters are now  a LOT more expensive than they used to be MFS will be
given a LOT more money.

Out of interest sake if you divide the total cost of employee benefits by
the total number of employees for each service, and MFS employee on average
costs $91,000, whereas a CFS employee costs $79,000. If you take into
account the fact that the MFS employee spectrum includes Senior Staff,
Administration and Firefighters, whereas ours only includes Senior Staff
and Administration you can basically assume MFS Senior Staff are paid a
fair bit better than CFS Senior Staff.

So that's the highlights, if you're feeling bored read on!

Here are the notes I made to myself as I read it, they are only the things
that interested me the most, it is not a full list:

Cost of Operating:

2008/9 - CFS Budget was       $53, 762, 000 (which was 2.3 million less
than our cost the year before, which from memory was a fair bit over
budget, thanks to the KI fires)
2008/9 - CFS Actual cost was        $52,676,000
In other words we came in under by slightly over 1 million dollars,
probably due to there being less significant fires this year, and the fact
we got extra money from the federal government.
2009/10 - CFS Budget will be        $54,713,000
In other words our cost of operating for next year is about 1 million
higher than our budgeted cost last year and 2 million more than we ACTUALLY
cost last year. (but still more than we cost this year, since we were
cheaper than expected)

2008/9 - MFS Budget was       $93,466,000 (which was about 9 million more
than the total spent the year before)
2008/9 - MFS Actual cost was        $97,186,000
In other words MFS overspent their budget by 3.7 million dollars, which was
basically spent on employees..
2009/10 - MFS Budget will be        $106,269,000
In other words the MFS budget has increased by 9 million dollars over what
they spent this year, and 12 million from last year's budget again, there
should be notes later on about where the extra money will go. But you would
have to be happy to have 84 million in 2007/8 and by 2009/10 have that go
up by 21.5 million in 2 years!

Poor old SES are allowed to cost $158,000 more next year which was at least
an increase, but is still within $200,000 of where they were 2
years ago.

SAFECOM blew their target of $14 million by over $5million, and have been
given almost the same target for this coming year, so we'll see if they can
blow it again.

For interest's sake SAPOL last year came in under by about $4.5 million and
were rewarded with an increase of about $21 million (5% ish) to a total of
$638,273,000

For the past year CFS had about 110.9 staff, and we're supposed to keep the
exact same number for next year. MFS get an extra 22.5 staff, to go to a
new total of 925.5. Poor old SES have to lose two staff and go back to a
total of 38. SAPOL should get just over 100 new staff.

For interest's sake our minister's office has 13 staff (more than 10%
of the entire paid staff of the CFS)  and is expected to cost just over 1.5
million to run for the next year.

Expenses

These are the straight expenses of the service, without any reference to
income, which may offset the costs. This is basically the amount we are
expected to spend:

2008/9 - CFS Expenses were predicted to be      $56,070,000 (which was
about 3 million less than the total spent the year before)
2008/9 - CFS Actual expenses were         $55,918,000
In other words CFS spent $152 thousand dollars less than we were expected
to AND we had more income in the areas of Commonwealth grants, other
grants, sales of goods and services and other income than we were expected
to, so we were very good performers. We controlled costs and lifted
income - if we were a business we would all be getting bonuses right now  :)
2009/10 - CFS expenses are expected to be $58,067,000
In other words the CFS get to go on a spending spree and spend almost two
million more next year than we did last year. Some of this will go on wages
(not much though - we don't get any extra staff) most of it goes on general
supplies and services, which have gone up due to inflation, so really we
won't get much more for our buck  :)

2008/9 - MFS Expenses were predicted to be      $98,669,000 (which was
about 5 million more than the total spent the year before)
2008/9 - MFS Actual expenses were         $102,486,000
In other words MFS spent 3.8 million than they were expected to. Given how
close this is to their cost of operating variance it means they didn't make
up for much of this added expense with increased income.
2009/10 - MFS expenses are expected to be $111,825,000
Basically MFS have a greater variance between their expenses and their cost
of operating because they earn more money than we do, but while we
underspent on expenses and over earned on income, they overspent on
expenses and came in on target on income, so they came out with higher
costs.

CFS
Our significant achievements of the past 12 months were thought to be:
   sending 400 vollies, 45 staff and the aircrane over to Victoria.
   Setting up a taskforce post black saturday to review ourselves
   setting up an incident management task group
   developing the tactical command and leadership course
   building a new website
   having some nice aircraft
   finishing the Mt Gambier group station
   They apparently set up a preparedness program for women on the Eyre
   Peninsula
   They did some more work on the Wangary reccommendations
   they made a DVD for community education
   they conducted a youth summit
For the next year they hope to:
   Reduce the number of people killed and injured in CFS area
   Train volunteers to conduct community education programs (money saver)
   Finish the Pt Lincoln station
   Trial some prototype appliances, including a rescue resource vehicle
   Set up electronic access to systems for the vollies
   Develop an incident level command and leadership program
   Establish a CFS medal award system
   Commence a review of evidence based resourcing levels (looks innocuous
   enough but I think we'll see more of this in the future)

CFS apparently have 15,000 volunteers and 423 locations. The CFS did 7,771
incidents last year.

Employee costs came in a tad over budget ($200,000), but supplies and
services came in under budget by about half a million, but we have been
given an increase of about 2 million on this line for next year (thanks
SAFECOM and inflation). We did however overspend on "other" by over
$250,000.  Our revenue from the commonwealth was also slightly up on
budget, and is expected to stay higher (nearly double budget for last year,
now nearly 2 million). For next year they are expecting to spend 2 million
dollars less on purchasing property plant and equipment (down to 12
million) which is down from 14.5 million in 2007/8.

Community education is going well, and they're pretty happy with their
consultation processes.

70 new appliances were scheduled for delivery (they don't comment on how
many actually WERE delivered).

They did upgrades or replacements at the following stations: Aldgate, Tea
Tree Gully, Curramulka, Georgetown, Saddleworth and the Mount Gambier Group
Coordination Centre.

They wanted 108 brigades to meet SFECs for training, but that didn't happen
(only 61 did - exactly the same number as did last year, so no improvement
there) and they're not terribly positive about meeting this year's target
of 100. Even lowering the bar isn't expected to help us jump over it.
Although they're saying it's because "if a single member lapses in their
training, the brigade will not have met the requirements", no mention of
the fact it isn't because the poor scapegoat "single member" tried but
couldn't get on a course. They trained up 703 new recruits last year. They
wanted to run 2 state level 3 exercise, but only managed one, and wanted to
run 12 regional level 2 exercises (2 per region), but only managed 4 (not
sure which regions got left behind), in light of this they have lowered the
bar and now will be happy if each region manages one.

Of the 7,771 calls the CFS went to 2,356 were vehicle related, 2,073 were
rural, 398 were structure fires and 192 were HAZMAT. So we could call
ourselves the Country Car Fire and Rescue Service.

The biggest incidents of last year were:
the deployment of CFS resources to assist in the Victorian Bushfires,
the Yorke Peninsula hay storage facility fire,
the Port Augusta prison incident, and
bushfires at Onkaparinga Hills,Waitpinga, Engelbrecht, Gawler River, Bibaringa, Danggali, Cobdogla, Robe, Frances and Proper Bay.

Apparently more fire deaths and injuries occur in CFS area than the
national average but this is improving. One of the reasons for this may be
that we include any reported injuries in our stats, but the national
average only counts them if the person is hospitalised.

Another stat that may get some attention post black saturday - 100% of
bushfire warning and information messages were issued within 30 minutes and
99% of calls to the bushfire hotline were answered.

72% of bushfires have a determined cause, and they were hoping for 80%, so
we will have another go at that one next year.

MFS
Their highlights form last year were considered:
   helping put on the AFAC conference
   Completing the Paradise station and starting work on Seaford
   Commissioning the new Aerial
   Worked with TAFE to review their staff development framework
   They conducted 4 recruit courses
   They renegotiated their EBA
Their big plans for next year include:
   Completing Seaford Station
   delivering 12 new General Purpose Pumpers
   Commissioning the Lincoln station and aerial
   Getting involved in USAR
   they will run "multiple' recruit courses

They had to spend a bit more money ($77,000) finishing the Beulah park
station this year that they hadn't planned to, and another $68,000 on their
engineering facility. The did a lot of work on Paradise, with only $300,000
or so more to do next year. They did about a third of the work they had
planned to on the Lincoln station, so still have heaps to do next year, and
they did half as much on the Seaford station as they planned, so still have
another 3 million to go on that one.

They blew their employee budget by 4 million, but that's OK their budget
for next year for employees has gone up by 11.5 million for next year, so
they still have 8 million to go, which will go on 22.5 new staff and the
fact they pay their current staff more under the new EBA. Almost
everything else for them was pretty close to target.

They are also pretty happy about a solar power initiative they started.

They investigated 185 fires and expected to investigate 210 (they now
expect 195 for next year). 75 CFS fires were investigated, when they only
expected 70. They expect 70 again this coming year.

They were also slightly down in school visits and the like.

They assessed more building proposals than they expected to, and did more
inspections. They did less booster commissioning than expected and they
expect to stay at the new lower level (because less new buildings are being
commissioned thanks to the GFC)

They did more training than they thought they would, and they recruited the
54 people they planned to. In the coming year they plan to recruit 36
people (so maybe one less recruit squad in the intake)

The number of structure fires they went to was well down, (1200 instead of
1700) and they think it will stay down. vehicle fires were slightly down,
as were other fires. Overall they went to 2,000 less callouts last year
than they expected to and they expect to go to even less (20,350) next
year. HAZMATs nearly halved, rescues were up about 20% and alarms were
down. They think structure fires might be down because of education
programs, but too early to say, and they think alarms are down because of
the new charging regime.

They wanted to arrive within 7 minutes (metro area) 75% of the time and
made it 80% of the time, and are hoping for 75% next year too. The retained
guys did better, with the same target of 75%, but for 11 minutes, they
managed it 81% of the time. The paid country guys topped the pops - with an
11 minute arrival target (jobs can be up to 50km away) they managed it 96%
of the time, 1% above their target.

They had budgeted for 50 SPAM debriefs but had 100, and are expecting 75
next year.

They have a fair bit of cash at hand at the moment, but they will invest a
chunk of that into land and buildings next year (that would be the
leftovers from being behind schedule at Lincoln and Seaford) they expect to
spend less next year on plant and equipment (vehicles, machines and stuff)
probably because they got the Aerial out last year.

SAFECOM
Over the next year they are:
   supposed to look at a telephony based emergency warning system (anyone
   see that coming?)
   They will have a focus on building replacement
   Changes to the Act (as suggested in the John Murray review) are supposed
   to be implemented
   They need to finish implementing the Wangary coronial findings
   Volunteer services need to be reviewed to "ensure that they align to the
   National Standards for Volunteers"
   They also need to "Provide the government with recommendations on
   Emergency Services Delivery Standards based on community risk", Keep an
   eye on this one, could be a lead-in to some service rationalisation.
   They also need to "Conduct a review of the procurement, servicing and
   salvaging of appliances, vehicles and vessels across the sector to
   improve efficiency, effectiveness and consistency", in it's best form it
   could mean some nice joint contracts for appliances with other services,
   could mean second hand MFS pumpers go on the run as CFS pumpers, but in
   its worst form it could mean that they extend the life of a CFS pumper
   to about a million years, or until it the amount of chewing gum
   holding it together outweighs the rust...

For their past year's $5 million blowing of the budget they are patting
themselves on the back for:
   Updating their website
   reviewing the administrative workloads of volunteers
   Basically doing what they are supposed to

Most of the blowout in budget occurred under "Services and Supplies" which
they were supposed to spend 5 million on, but they spent 10 million on.
They have been allocated even less ($500,000 less) for this budget line
next year. There are no clear details on what this entails, but i can tell
you it isn't consultancies, because they were pretty much on budget. Maybe
they bought a lot of paperclips.
They also significantly overspent on "Other" which was supposed to be
$64,000 but became $166,000. They have been only been given $65,000 for
this budget line next year so won't be allowed to keep up the
overspend.T hey were expecting to get half a million from the government
last year but got zippo (it was sent to Treasury instead, because they now
look after the relevant programs so they are expecting zilch again this
year).

They set up a State Logistics Functional Service which will provide
logistics support, such as catering and supplies during major emergencies.

SAFECOM had slightly less staff than they were allowed, so that was a bit
cheaper and they got given more money by the state government that was
moved between programs (some of the stuff that went to treasury got sent
back) but this didn't quite make up for the mystery overspend. They blamed
the overspend on "inflation supplementation"

SAFECOM expect to get less from the ESL next year, but are happy with that
because they think the emergency services will get cheaper next year (make
up your own mind about that one)


3
SAAS / Medstar retrieval service
« on: March 03, 2009, 06:33:42 PM »
Ok some of the SAAS gurus on here will be able to answer this one, who is Medistar ??

I have heard a few transmissions on the scanner in the last couple of days relating to Medistar and them being dispatched on their way to do a retrieval. In one case the Comm's operator said something like "a retrieval should be on the way according to this new system but we haven't been told if they are or not".

So I assume some changes have taken place in regards to the retrieval service, are Medistar just Mediflight with a new name and some new shiny red uniforms or has there been another twist to this story.

I am guessing this is part of the major overhaul of the retrieval game some of you alluded to last year.

4
All Equipment discussion / Floating pumps (split from SACFS future ideas)
« on: February 17, 2009, 11:04:21 AM »
I will start, please try to follow this kind of format.

Idea: All off road fire appliances not directly supported by a tanker or larger appliance be fitted with a floating axillary pump. (I.e. 24&34 appliances and up)

Reasons:
  • With the current drought, us firefighters are finding it much harder to find decent water sources to draught from.
  • Floating pumps can be much simpler to set up and use as a water source and from what i have seen are much more reliable than trying to maintain suction on a 20+ year appliance.
  • It would be much easier for irregular members to remember how to use a stand alone floating pump that to deal with some of the potential woes of draughting.
  • if a truck is ever trapped with no support in an area with a suitable water supply, and the main pump fails, they will at least have some water to protect them selves with.

Approx Cost: Around $1000-3000 per appliance. Depending on quality.

Possible negative effects:
  • Loss of storage space.
  • The requirement for more training of members

EDIT: Cost as per matt's post

Good idea Pix, Floto pumps do certainly have a place in our service, especially given the difficulty we have in finding water these days. We have a number of areas in our own group where you can no longer get physically close enough with an appliance to draught from, you could however use a Floto pump and still get water.

Quote
Approx Cost: Around $500-1000 per appliance.

For info the one we purchased was closer to $3000

[EDIT:  quoted Pixie's post so this thread would make sense..]

5
Country Fire Service / CFSVA now on You Tube
« on: January 18, 2009, 09:22:30 AM »
At the moment it is just the four TV commercials that went to air on the regional television stations, but there may be more to be put on here in the future http://au.youtube.com/user/CFSVA

6
The Humour Zone / You may be an outer metro firefighter if....
« on: November 07, 2008, 11:47:10 AM »
This was pinched from CFASTREAM and modified for SA, It's scary how many of these apply to my brigade  :lol:


You've ever wanted to fit a smaller tank to your Tanker so that you
could carry more gear.
 
You've ever considered not responding to a call-out because you've
just hot-waxed the tanker.
 
Your last three captains have moved on to Region positions, or are now
working at HQ.
 
You have conducted a serious debate on the relative merits of hard
and soft suction that lasted for over 90 minutes,, your SOP on this issue
changes annually......... but you're a little vague on open-source
draughting.
 
All of your 4wd vehicles are fitted with "h" speed-rated highway
tyres.
 
Your station is double-brick and has a recreation room that is
larger than the garage-space.
 
Your station is equipped with a full-sized billiard table and a
coke-machine that dispenses at least six brands of beer.
 
You have a spare set of yellows and boots that are kept clean for
wearing when the Cheif Officer visits.
 
You are on first-name terms with at least 75% of the inmates of
The big Shed and the Chief officer recognises you when you're "out-of-uniform".
 
You've suggested that CFS merchandise should include approved
underwear that are Proban treated and embroidered with the CFS crest.
 
You think that such underwear would be "sexy".
 
You can turn directly to any location in your UBD Directory
without consulting the index map,,,, but have difficulty folding a
map-sheet.
 
You consider it a weakness that your GPS doesn't give map references
in UBD format.
 
You keep your Strike Team bag packed all year round.
 
Your tanker's kit includes a cricket bat and ball...... permanently.
 
Your brigade holds an annual brainstorming session to find uses for the budget surplus.
 
Your captain holds 37 different qualifications but has not
experienced a bush/grass-fire larger than 2.8 hectares.
 
You go to a fashion show and come home with at least 3 different
ideas for the design of PPE and CFS merchandise.
 
The last debate on "one piece" vs. "two piece" was with regard to
the official swimsuits to be worn by the female members crewing the fireboat on PR exercises.
 
The Smog Index is more important than the Fire Weather Forecast when planning burn-offs.
 
You've ever had a water-fight with a neighbouring brigade/service
because they attended an incident in your territory
 
You've ever had a fist-fight for the same reason.
 
You've ever been to court for the same reason.
 
All of the above, but you were in their territory.....
 
MFS considers your territory worth taking over.
 
You've ever reported your barbecue as an "incident" to boost your
tally.
 
Visitors from the country get strangely excited when you allow them to
salvage gear that you were going to cart to the tip next weekend.
 
When showing visitors from the country around your station, you
consider it prudent to give them a two-person escort at all times and a body search when they leave.
 
You find the 1995 SOPs and are shocked to see that three of them
have not been changed in the last 10 years.
 
Your book of radio codes has expanded to 87 pages,, but you still
maintain that it "simplifies communications".
 
Your wife has been heard to express annoyance at your use of numeric codes to define the status of the baby's nappy, the roast in the oven,,,, and her new hairstyle.
 
You consider CFS merchandise suitable apparel for weddings and
funerals.
 
You average more than 10 posts a week on Firefighter Discussion Boards.
 
Your VFBA branch meets monthly.
 
You have a list of EPA tested and approved sources of water for use
in "Sensitive" areas.
 
You have at least a dozen alternative meanings for the acronym
"GRN",, 90% of which are derogatory.
 
You feel that the bull-bar on your new tanker "spoils its
lines" and that it doesn't have any real purpose.
 
You can't recall seeing a tanker with more than 5,000 kilometres on the odometer outside of a museum.
 
Your family Commodore is "Fire Brigade Red",,,, but only because
"Bushfire Orange" is not an option that Holden offer.
 
Keeping up with the brigade next door is considered a valid reason
to upgrade your two-year-old Isuzu.
 
You've declared a tanker Unfit for Service because the
air-conditioner broke down.
 
You think that 5 years in the brigade should qualify you for a
long-service pin.

Your pumper is the primary vehicle to all incidents including grass and scrub fires.

When your supporting another brigade to a G&S and are asked to return your Pumper to station and bring your Tanker you argue the point.

All your Rakehoes are the screw together type.

7
Country Fire Service / Turnout Information Management system (TIM)
« on: April 16, 2008, 08:02:21 PM »
A few people have been asking about the new fire station Turnout Information Management (TIM) system we are trialling at Morphett Vale.

The Turnout Information Manger (TIM) takes the response pager messages and reformats them in a much more human friendly format (large coloured display, printed copies and spoken out loud). The display can be presented on multiple (LCD) displays placed at strategic locations around the fire station. Video splitters are available that will allow up to 8 displays to be run from a single computer. TIM takes the messages as sent via the GRN pager network and requires no human intervention for them to be displayed in these forms.

Pager messages are captured by an scanner and passed to a computer via a serial port interface to a paging decoder program (PDW). Response messages for a particular brigade or brigades are then exported from PDW to TIM. 

TIM removes unnecessary components of the message (for example, the words MFS &  CFSRES, the time/date), extracts important information – incident type, job details and address, incident number, UBD map references, talkgroup allocated, paged brigades and displays this information on a number of (LCD) displays strategically placed in the station, it converts the job details to speech and finally prints the relevant part of the UBD map showing the incident location as well as the raw pager message.

The major features of TIM are …

1.   Display of pager messages on large LCD screens
2.   Colour coded display timer to indicate response time compliance
3.   Speak pager messages with realistic voice - repeated as required
4.   Print map of UBD reference
5.   Require no user intervention
6.   Ability to scroll back through pager message history

In the future it may be possible to run TIM from the off air decoder in each station, this would be a more desirable situation as running PDW can be problematic.

At this stage we are still only trialling the system and have not yet setup additional monitors around the station, however it is planned that at least two will be installed in the near future.

The program is actually designed for the CFA system, however I have been working with the developer for approximately six months to modify it for the S.A. environment. It is hoped that it will eventually be commercially available for all brigades once we are happy with it.

To give you an idea on what it looks like I have added a few screenshots of TIM  running and the printouts it gives you.

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s185/mattb850/CFS/TIMScreen8.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s185/mattb850/CFS/TIMmap2.jpg

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s185/mattb850/CFS/TIMScreen7.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s185/mattb850/CFS/TIMmap1.jpg


8
SA Fire Fighter Events / Morphett Vale CFS - Equipment Day
« on: April 16, 2008, 07:16:56 PM »
In the past the Mawson Group Equipment night has been held at the Morphett Vale fire station on a Monday evening, this year due to increasing numbers we have moved it to a Sunday to allow more people to be involved and give everyone a better chance to have a look around and catch up.

The idea of the event is to bring together emergency service personnel from a number of agencies so they can have a look at what sort of equipment others carry and how it could be useful to them. It also is a chance to browse the latest offerings from a number of emergency service equipment suppliers and maybe pickup a bargain.

The event is open to the public and there will be a various demonstrations throughout the day, there will also be food available and the bar will be open.

This will be a good opportunity to get along and have a look at what sort of equipment other brigades are purchasing and carrying. It would be good to see brigades from all around the state become involved, if you can bring an appliance with any new toys or interesting equipment you have that would be great, just let us know before hand so we can keep track of how much space we need.

The details for this years event are:
Sunday 1st of June, 10:00 - 15:00
Morphett Vale Fire Station, corner of States & Doctors road, Hackham

There are flyers available here

http://www.mvcfs.asn.au/bigdayout1.pdf
http://www.mvcfs.asn.au/bigdayout2.pdf
http://www.mvcfs.asn.au/bigdayout3.pdf

Regards

Matt

9
SASES / Edinburgh SES ??
« on: January 31, 2008, 01:51:56 PM »
I heard the guys and gals at Northern SES last night doing radio checks using the callsign of 'Edinburgh 41' 'Edinburgh portable' etc etc.

Is this a change in unit name for the team or was it just a once off ??

10
SAMFS / Mt Gambier MFS going full time
« on: February 07, 2006, 03:38:55 PM »
Looks like the retained boys in Mt Gambier are getting some paid assistance.

From a Liberal party media release

Preference must be given to local firefighters

The Liberal Party has been informed that the Labor Government intends to transfer Adelaide Metropolitan Fire Service firefighters to Mount Gambier.

While welcoming additional positions at the Mount Gambier station, Liberal Emergency Services Spokesman Angus Redford said any new day-time positions for city should be offered to the local retained (part-time) firefighters.

He said local firefighters have been told that at least two positions will be filled from Adelaide and that locals may be able to apply for the other positions.

They have also been advised that they will be required to undertake all basic recruitment tests.

Mr Redford said it’s important that prior service is recognised in selecting the firefighters for the positions.
"Their local knowledge and dedication to the part-time positions must be taken into account," Mr Redford said.

Liberal Candidate for Mount Gambier Peter Gandolfi said the former Liberal Government invested heavily in building Mount Gambier’s new fire station.
"It’s an insult to locals for the Government to give priority to Adelaide firefighters.

“It is also vital that the Government consult fully with the local CFS Brigades regarding any changes to fire services in the region,” Mr Gandolfi said.

11
Other Government Agencies / SES SCC relocation
« on: November 29, 2005, 08:43:17 PM »
I understand all SES call receipt and dispatch operations are being handed over to MFS for the day to day stuff in a couple of months time.

An area is being built in the MFS building for the SES to setup for major operations.

There was some info about this in the Advertiser today in the article regarding the lack of room for SAAS in Adelaide station.

12
Country Fire Service / New Helicopter
« on: November 29, 2005, 08:39:43 PM »
I have uploaded a pic of a new SA fire bombing helicopter to the Gallery.

They are both 'Koalas' and this one is nearly new (60 hours). The other will be hear in a week or so, they will be officially launched on the 19th of December.

They are both fitted with 1200 litre belly tanks and are operated by HeliAir from Adelaide Airport. 

Look out for them during summer.

13
SA Firefighter General / Online SAGRN Scanner
« on: October 22, 2005, 07:55:05 PM »
Hi all, just wanted to let you know that we now have a online scanner stream running in South Australia. At the moment it is scanning a number of SAGRN sites and a couple of conventional frequencies, most of the traffic you will hear is Ambos, MFS & CFS with a bit of the SES, St John and Multi Agency talkgroups in there as well.

It is still in test mode at the moment but will be generally 24/7 unless it crashes for some reason.

Log onto http://users.chariot.net.au/~mattb/scan/sa-scan.asx to have a listen.
Also have a look at http://users.chariot.net.au/~mattb/scan/scanner.htm for all the info on scanning in South Australia.

Cheers

Matt  :-D

14
HAZMAT / Dalkeith Hazmat vehicle
« on: January 01, 2005, 09:11:16 PM »
I understand Dalkeith now have a dedicated Hazmat vehicle, does anyone have any pictures ??

Matt B   :D

Pages: [1]
anything