conversely they could draw the conclusion that they get great value for money because should the most likely catastrophic incident in their area occur (ie a bushfire) up to (in my case) 137 firefighters are available with pagers to respond and get 13 appliances (+ 3 command cars)to a scene within a 6km radius of the centre of the group. Now they may not all be BA qualified, they may not all be highly profficient, they may not all drive automatic trucks, and they may not all prostitute themselves publically for a calendar launch......but in the far majority of cases, they are safe, efficient and professional. Compare the numbers to a metro incident, where that number of appliances empties 2/3rds of the MFS stations and leaves the MFS unable to mount another 3rd alarm response in many cases - unless (as always the CFS fills them with COQs). All that, and the ESL payers in the Groups either side of me get exactly the same response as well....they too would appear similarly blessed. Perhaps the taxpayers in the suburb with the $9mil car park should ask why they get such a crappy return for the $$
Yes you are correct misterteddy .......... in a country environment . Nothing wrong with the CFS response in a bushfire situation with acres of grass and trees burning. Yes, I know.... there are houses and buildings that can be involved also and I'm sure the CFS can look after itself.
Bring an urban environment into it and it is a completely different kettle of fish. Domestic dwelling next to domestic dwelling next to domestic dwelling....
guess what, in semi urban environment, MFS strike team for asset protection.
2/3 rds of the MFS appliances are sent to a major fire and the CFS does COQ. How many are CFS are urban qualified crews? How many CFS trucks are urban pumping capable? How many CFS trucks can Boost? How many MFS trucks can go off road? How many MFS trucks have pump and roll capability? How many MFS trucks have burn over protection?
Neither service can compare itself to the other? We all have our specialties and CFS is predominantly for country services and MFS is predominantly for metropolitan services. Where we meet on a boundary, I think we work well together(most of the time). In my experience, out North, there is a lot of this is ours and that is yours, and east, I have interestingly found co-operative service between the two.
I am sick of the Them and Us attitude as I'm sure most are so lets get back to our core business of providing emergency assistance to the people of SA, be it in a White truck or a Red truck, paid or not.
