Hi my name is Leo Cartwright from the Latrobe Valley in Victoria Australia, I am a RAR Assessor with the Australisian Road Rescue organisation (ARRO) This year alone I traveled to Nelson New Zealand in Feburary, will attend the Australisian Challenge this coming May in Queensland and then the World titles in Cardiff, Wales UK this coming July. I hope to pass on some information after the events. last week I attended the Holden training grounds where new vehicles were cushed at the B piller, then cut and rammed, both Halmatro and Lucus hydrolics were used and both were able to cut these newer metals in these vehicles. some of the relieve cuts at the bottom of the A piller near the foot well may need some future work as this became time consuming which once done with little effort. Get back to U soon

Hey all, I'm searching high and low for any Aussie who actually came to Indianapolis Indiana in April for the FF Conference. Know of anyone?

G'day to our mates down under. Good to see a group here on FFN for our friends from Oz! If you're here, you probably already know about IPN. If not, here's a brief:

IPN is the world's largest breaking incident notification network, providing info on working fire and law enforcement incidents world-wide in nearly every English-speaking nation on the planet. We currently offer coverage in the the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., Ireland and more.

If you actively monitor a fire or police radio and would like to join our international dispatch team, please visit us online at www.IncidentPage.net. Our dispatchers get credits for each call sent, and those credits can be redeemed for things like scanners, IPN outerwear, popular gaming consoles (PS3, XB0x360, PSP, etc.), and dozens of other free items.

If you have any questions about the IPN dispatch program, please email us at support [at] incidentpage.net. We would love to hear from you!

hw=ey randall i have just been accepted to riddles creek volunteer fire brigage and i am moving down there next week i am looking foward to start training and be part of the cfa

G'day, im derek, from Balhannah in south australia, with the Oakbank/Balhannah country fire service. Pretty much into Compartment firefighting and Hazmat.

Hello all - are we getting what we wanted from FFN? I am, a lot of contact with people both in threads and PM's. A good site.

Hey, wanted to say, I hope you all in NSW and Victoria are staying safe and to let you all know we have you in our prayers.

Wow...You guys are getting hit pretty hard. Been keeping up on the news with the complete devestation. My heart goes out to you all and to all of the family down under that have had to experience this devestation. You are in my daily thoughts and prayers...

hi.....I am from colombia and technology in pre-hospital care ... possibly a year and a half be in Australia and I would like to meet people here because when I do get there a paramedic and firefighter course and work in this spectacular world that is .. I hope to spend a good evening ...

Hi all, Im a volunteer in WA. been ff'ing for 15 years and love it =) feel free to add me as a friend =)

Hi, Im a volunteer with the CFA Victoria. Been a firey for bout 30 years now with Vic CFA SA CFS AND NSW Bushfire Brigades.
Feel free to make contact

G'day, I am a Fire Fighter with Narrogin Volunteer Fire & Rescue and a Volunteer Ambulance Officer with St John Ambulance.

Narrogin VFRS are celebrating our 85th Anniversary this year and any ex members should contact me to book a seat at our dinner in October.

Narrogin VFRS is a busy vollie station. We deal with a large range of incidents (structural and bush fires, MVA's, Hazmat) and run 4 vehicles, a Country Pump, Light Tanker and two 3.4Rural trucks. Looking forward to meeting other vollies throughout WA, Australia and the world.

hey all well i have been busy latley with fire rescue and we have had a few fires and a couple of rescues anyone else been busy latley and would anyone be intrested in sending me patches because i am a collector of patches here is my postal address

10 vereker street
fairy meadow nsw
2519

hi all my name is luke im a proby from geelong (cfa)we have 6 appliances teleboom,hazmat,ba van,tanker,pumper,and car hope to talk to you all soon.

Great to be onboard. I'm Geoff from the Green Head Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade. We are 30 odd km's north of Jurien on the W.A. coast. Our primary role is Defensive Structural but Bush / Wild Fire takes up the majority of our incidents. Our Appliances are a Landcruiser Light Tanker and a Isuzu 3.4U Tanker. If anyone is up this way the shed is open on most Sunday mornings so call in and make yourself known.

Line of duty death in Victoria.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/one-killed-four-injured-as-fire-tank...

Hey guys
Iam a volunteer firie from NSW. Look forward to chatting to you lot.
Azz

Hey guys, How was everyones season? We didnt get a great deal of fires in the local area this year. The blue mountains is ready to go, however no real events...Whats it like in the other states?

Arron

A new group has been formed for collectors of Australian Patches.
http://www.firefighternation.com/group/australianpatchcollectors

Come and join.

By asking active group members you will find out who are reliable

Hey guys, Im looking for a couple of Australian firefighting patches. If anyone has any Northern Territory, ACT, or South Australian patches can you please let me know.

Cheers
Arron

G'day Aaron,
I am in the Northern Territory Fire and Rescue, send me some details and I will try and dig some NT patches up for you.

Thanks heaps Matt

I tried to send you an email with all my details. Just added you as a friend. I have a few patches that I can trade you if interested. Let me know your address as well and I will get some to you.

Thanks
Arron

Hi i am Allan from Sebastopol CFA

I want to come there to teach. I have instructed throughout the United States. I am a retired firefighter with 30 years of experience. www.firemanager.com

You want to come to Australia to teach? Wildfire or structural or both? In whichever field, there would be a learning curve for you. We have a national system of training that really only differs in detail from state to state. The wildfire side is similar (but not the same) to what is used on the west coast of North America. Structural? Now there you would find a lot of differences. We tend to follow the UK/EU methods of structural firfighting. I'm not saying that you couldn't teach mind you! To get a job teaching however might be harder.

If I'm not making sense, please feel free to contact me direct. ;0)

I have made a number of contacts to teach there and I am aware that there is a national system of training. I tend to teach the soft skills outside of the normal firefighter training: Leadership and Management. I have a Common Sense Leadership program, Basic and Advanced Leadership training programs, my newest Ethical Leadership Training. I stress ethics with a common sense leadership approach. I also teach stress management, conflict management, team building, customer service, and more.

Yes - I have taught firefighting subjects (wildland and structural), but I also teach Haz Mat, Terrorism/WMD, Dirty Bombs, Safety Officer training, Situational Awareness, Command Presence, Safety, and more.

Sounds an interesting career Al! For my FRS, you'd have to make contact with head office to get involved on those fields on a private basis. www.cfa.vic.gov.au will give you a starting point.

There are of course private training organisations in the State, but the only one I have contact with for training as a firefighter is for 1st Aid - everything else is in-house. Mind you it is a very big 'house', >50,000 volunteers.

When I say I want to come there to teach. It is for a short period of time. I want to visit - vacation - and do some work if I can. I have been able to teach in England, Canada, and the United States. I want to do some more international assignments. Thanks for the comments Tony P - Al Mozingo - www.firemanager.com

hi everyone im ranni.im from beaudesert auxilliary station..been ther couple of months now an loving it heaps...good to see some fellow aussie fireys

Hi Everyone
I live in Mount Tomah in the Blue Mountains in NSW. It is a fairly isolated spot as far as being surrounded by national parks. We have no police or ambulance services here within about an hour, so we are basically first responders in all but name. I love being a volunteer and could not imagine my life without the RFS and all my amazing crew and fellow volunteers.

You certainly are up in the scrub aren't you Liz!

Hi paul,
Im still fairly new to the fire game but ill tell you what i know about large scale wild fire fighting over here.
basically when a medium/large fire starts we try to get trucks there and try to pull it up as fast as possible. We do have aricraft but they are small compared to what is used in other areas of the world this is largely to do with terrain and lack of suitable landing/refilling/refuling in the main fire areas.

We have 3 main fire services; 1 that protects private property, 1 for national parks and then if you own over a certain ammout of plantation land you need your own fire service.
Generally we all work together in the initial attack of a fire but as it winds down each service is left to finish the job off depending whose job it is.

We also use bull dozers and other earth moving equipment to cut fire breaks in front of fires or the flank of a fire to stop it before a wind change. If its a slow moving fire in inaccessable areas then we go in with rake hoes (we all hate them) and cut a fire break around the fire.

If the fire is prolonged then other states may send FF to the fire to give local crews a break or to bolster what is already there to try and get it out faster.
Even though we aim to put the fire out sometimes we will let it burn through to a certain point for rejeneration of that area. But it all depends on who is in charge and id say that it may change due to "black saturday"

Hope this helps. Got any questions ill try to answer them but im sure someone here knows more than me.

Paul? Mainly we'll attack fires as hard as possible in the fire season, we use 4WD off road 'pumpers' (which some States call '(Tankers)). This is the first means of attack, and the quickest. Depending on conditions, aircraft get called in, mainly choppers down here in my State. Whether these fires are on grassland, crops or forest, the methods are generally similar.


I've been on main attacks for a single fire that had around 80 of our Tankers involved (with a crew of five each), helicopters, dozers called in. I've been on massive multi fire jobs that had hundred of Tankers involved. It is all variable depending on risk, in our case to private property (and lives of course). Our details can be very different, this is a huge country with a small population and just about any sort of wildfire risk you can name. Small population means we have to make the money work hard in firefighting!

And Paul? I've eaten 'roo - but prefer beef ;o)

Tony iv never heard of our tankers being called pumpers unless they are pumper/tankers. But thats just me, i may be missing sumthing

Paul,
The biggest our our tankers (you call tenders) are between 500-3000 litres (130-790 Gallons) of firefighting water the other 1/4 tank is self protection. Yes we do have hand crews and some vehicles to transport them but all our trucks carry tools used to cut fire lines but we only use this when we need to or its not practical to use the trucks. But here in Victoria the DSE () has a some rappel crews that drop into small remote fires and cut breaks around them before they get to big. Generally we use a bit of everything as it gets the job done faster.
We do have airplanes but they are nothing compared to what you use we also use hellicopters such as the sikorsky skycranes. Last season we did hire the DC10 super tanker but it only got 1 or 2 drops for the season. we had a very quiet summer down here.

I prefer Roo over beef any day

We call enough to get the job done and have enough work for all of them if something happens and you suddenly dont need that many trucks then you ask dispatch to cancel some of the trucks if you need more then you ask for more. If there is nothing for them to do then they dont get called in the first place. We can also request specific trucks because they have better off road abilities or specific equipment that you need.
The helicopter crews over here are the same, just drop in with handtools and someone will carry a chainsaw.

I wouldn't know if its like eating mouse as iv never eaten mouse before but it is very tender and takes only a minute or so to cook. They are protected in the way that you cant just go out hunting them but they do sell Roo meat in some of the shops over here i think that they farm them but also get them from areas that are over populated with roos and they cull them.
they do roam free all over australia and they dont carry any diseases that i know of. They are out and about all of they day and night

I've done well, caused confusion with two people this time! ;o)

I was calling our Tankers a 'pumper' to indicate it is a firefighting vehicle, I didn't explain my use of the word. Our Tankers are close to what are often called 'Brush Trucks', or even an 'Engine'. What the west coast of the USA call a "tender" is simply a water transport vehicle, or a water tanker here.

A smal bushfire (ourcommon name for a wildfire) will have as many tankers mobilised as is thought to be adequate; a large fire will often have Strike Teams (5 Tankers and one car) mobilised, when this happens there will often be extra Strike Teams called to stay at a staging area as close support if needed.

Kangaroos? Don't even think of the word 'mouse' when the 'roo is discussed. Unless you like to think of mouse that move along on their hind legs and can stand 6 feet tall? Best to forget about mice. And rabbits. The 'roo is a big animal.

Paul, there are several photos of our Tankers on my page, they will give you an idea them. My brigades pumper is also on there.

Paul, best place to answer thes questions is in your AussieTanker thread in this group. Maybe cancel the second one you started, the one without any replies?

Hi all,
just new to this forum,

Welcome Brett

There's probably a collecter in my FRC that'll help you with one of our bages; I don't have any spares though.

Fire Season? Still in winter weather in my part of the country, structure fire time. The winter season for us usually starts sometime in late Oct early Nov. Other States have different times...

My name is David Harmon. I’m an expat recruiter, and X-USAF Firefighter, working out of Dubai, U.A.E. We have a military base here that is operated by the Australian military. They are in need of Firefighters, specifically Aussies. If you are interested or know any Aussies who might be, please have them contact me. We have a total of 77 positions to fill at 3 different levels. At least 50% of the staff are required to be Australian.

Kind Regards,
David Harmon
david.harmon@aspiriti.com

member nswrfs