First Fire of the Season

**Bigbjorn** · 23rd October 2007, 07:48 AM

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Pretty much - good analogy. Strictly hay would be dried cabbage, but I haven't struck that as an item of food.

John

Nor have I. It was a quick thought. Dried (dehydrated) mutton was pretty ordinary. There was a meatworks in Winton that did this for export. Tried it once just for the experience. The works operated during WWII into the 1950's. Don't know why it closed, probably the markets disappeared. Classic example of government waste. The works had been closed for some years when govt. money was made available to bring the works up to USDA standards to be able to export frozen meat. Promises were made about a reopening and, tales of jobs, jobs, jobs, and money falling from the skies were spread by the politicians. Housing Commission houses were built to accommodate the influx of workers. The works and houses stood empty for years. I think most of the houses were picked up amd moved to areas of need.

**JDNSW** · 24th October 2007, 07:40 PM

For those who are interested - I was over there yesterday retrieving the brigade's fast fill pump, and took a photo.

John

**George130** · 24th October 2007, 07:50 PM

Been talking to our local Fire RFS. I plan to join as my place is one of the worst around here. Most of the block is a time bomb waiting to go up! It's amazing in the last 4 years 20 trees have either died or fallen over and we still have more than any of our neighbors.

**JDNSW** · 24th October 2007, 08:10 PM

Originally Posted by George130

Been talking to our local Fire RFS. I plan to join as my place is one of the worst around here. Most of the block is a time bomb waiting to go up! It's amazing in the last 4 years 20 trees have either died or fallen over and we still have more than any of our neighbors.

I can only encourage you. I suspect your area has a lot larger brigade than ours - the area covered by our brigade has only fourteen properties - by the time you subtract absentee owners and octogenarians, it doesn't leave a lot of able bodied firefighters. And although the area of private land covered is only about 30,000ha, it adjoins the former Goonoo state forest, now a State conservation area. Your brigade would be responsible for a lot more houses I expect as the area is more densely populated, but this should mean more people available for volunteering.

Go for it.

John

**George130** · 24th October 2007, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by JDNSW

I can only encourage you. I suspect your area has a lot larger brigade than ours - the area covered by our brigade has only fourteen properties - by the time you subtract absentee owners and octogenarians, it doesn't leave a lot of able bodied firefighters. And although the area of private land covered is only about 30,000ha, it adjoins the former Goonoo state forest, now a State conservation area. Your brigade would be responsible for a lot more houses I expect as the area is more densely populated, but this should mean more people available for volunteering.

Go for it.

John

Yea a lot of properties but not a lot of volunteers.

**Bushie** · 24th October 2007, 08:22 PM

One click and look what happens - how long has the thanks button been around???

Martyn

**George130** · 24th October 2007, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by Bushie

One click and look what happens - how long has the thanks button been around???

Martyn

It's brand new

**JDNSW** · 24th October 2007, 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by George130

Yea a lot of properties but not a lot of volunteers.

Over the last few years the RFS seems to be discouraging volunteers (I'm sure its not intentional) with all sorts of red tape, both to do with being a volunteer and with actually fighting fires. One of the latest is that all new volunteers need a police check. While this is perhaps indicated by a very few dubious characters who have been volunteers in the past, one has to wonder whether the benefit (and how many offenders had a previous record anyway?) of it may not be outweighed by the number of volunteers whom it has discouraged from volunteering, let alone the more useful things that could be done with the time and money spent checking up on the non-existent police records of nearly all volunteers.

Another thing that has been criticised on a number of occasions is the tendency to centralise control of large fires and ignore local knowledge.

Don't get me wrong - the quality of firefighting has improved markedly in the last few years (so has the amount of money spent on it), but the proportion and status of volunteers has decreased at the same time, and if this keeps up, we won't have a rural fire service in ten years.

John

**George130** · 24th October 2007, 08:46 PM

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Over the last few years the RFS seems to be discouraging volunteers (I'm sure its not intentional) with all sorts of red tape, both to do with being a volunteer and with actually fighting fires. One of the latest is that all new volunteers need a police check. While this is perhaps indicated by a very few dubious characters who have been volunteers in the past, one has to wonder whether the benefit (and how many offenders had a previous record anyway?) of it may not be outweighed by the number of volunteers whom it has discouraged from volunteering, let alone the more useful things that could be done with the time and money spent checking up on the non-existent police records of nearly all volunteers.

Another thing that has been criticised on a number of occasions is the tendency to centralise control of large fires and ignore local knowledge.

Don't get me wrong - the quality of firefighting has improved markedly in the last few years (so has the amount of money spent on it), but the proportion and status of volunteers has decreased at the same time, and if this keeps up, we won't have a rural fire service in ten years.

John

Police check doesn't worry me. I have had worse for work. We are also luck as the main control center is located in Yass.

Treads · 24th October 2007, 09:31 PM

NSW RFS Police checks do take time (about 21 days) to process; however the biggest problem we're having now is running a Basic Firefighter course quickly enough after a member joins the brigade. Often there can be a 2-3 month wait for a course if a person joins near the fire season.

We are in the middle of some decent fires at the moment, but the instructing team is having to run a last minute BF course over 3 weekday nights + 1 weekend on top of this. The aim of which is simply to 'catch' the 15 or so new members of the zone before they lose interest over the coming season.

I got home at 6pm tonight after chewing smoke all day to have to instruct for 3 hours on the course

As long as we get some good firefighters it's all worth it.

Todays' operations East of Armidale

Thread: First Fire of the Season

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