firefighters: the men and women who risk their lives to save ours

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GARY MCKAY is a professional writer and his books include the best-selling Tracy and In Good Company. At the age of 20, Gary confronted hisfirst bush fire as a recently-drafted Australian Army soldier. He then spentthe next 30 years in the Army and served as a platoon commander inSouth Viet Nam, where he was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry.

To research this book, Gary attended a twelve-week firefightingtraining course and then went on shift with the firies from Brisbane toCairns and watched first-hand as the firefighters tackled house and carfires and extricated motor vehicle accident victims from wrecked cars.He interviewed over 50 firies for their accounts of the highs and lows ofthis demanding and dangerous job.

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GARY McKAY

THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO RISK THEIR LIVES TO SAVE OURS

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First published in 2002

Copyright © Gary McKay 2002

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,including photocopying, recording or by any information storageand retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from thepublisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows amaximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for itseducational purposes provided that the educational institution (orbody that administers it) has given a remuneration notice toCopyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin83 Alexander StreetCrows Nest NSW 2065AustraliaPhone: (61 2) 8425 0100Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218Email: [email protected]: www.allenandunwin.com

National Library of AustraliaCataloguing-in-Publication entry:

McKay, Gary.Firefighters: the men and women who risk their lives tosave ours.

Bibliography.Includes index.ISBN 1 86508 653 3.

1. Fire fighters—Australia. 2. Fire fighters—Australia—Anecdotes. 3. Fire fighters—Australia—History.4. Fire extinction—Australia. 5. Fire extinction—Australia—Anecdotes. 6. Fire extinction—Australia—History. I. Title.

363.37092294

Set in 11/14 pt Aldine by Midland Typesetters, Maryborough, Vic.Printed by Griffin Press, South Australia

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Firefighting is a dangerous job. Since 1877 some 38 firefighters from all types of service in the Queensland firefighting

community have lost their lives in the course of their duty. This book is dedicated to their memory.

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CONTENTS

PREFACE viii

1 THE FIRIES 12 RECRUIT TRAINING 123 ON THE JOB 374 THE AUXILIARIES 575 THE RURAL FIRE SERVICE 716 FIREFIGHTING 807 RESCUE 988 A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN URBAN FIREFIGHTER 1179 THE REGIONALS 130

10 CHILDERS 14511 OOPS! 15512 COURAGE UNDER FIRE 161

APPENDIX 1: THE ENEMY 175APPENDIX 2: QFRS REGIONS 187

GLOSSARY 188NOTES AND SOURCES 193INDEX 199

VIII

PREFACE

I have wanted to write this book for many years. I first fought a majorfire—a crowning bushfire—in the Hunter Valley in New South Walesin 1968. To a young National Service army lieutenant it was a terrifyingtime, especially as everyone around me, mostly draftees training for VietNam, knew as little as I did about how to tackle the monster that wasdestroying everything in its path. While we lost a truck in the fire, wesaved a winery—but that was due more to good luck than to goodmanagement.

In order to be able to explain in simple terms what it’s like to be afirefighter, I first attended one of the courses at the former trainingestablishment at Lytton in Brisbane. There I followed the experiencesof eleven recruits as they learnt their basic skills and drills. I watchedthem gain knowledge in the classroom and then put it into practice in‘dry’ drills and, later, ‘wet’ ones. I accompanied them on to the hot firetraining pad and saw them advance into searing flames, confident intheir instructors’ guidance. I saw them get singed, steamed, soaked andsmoked in the various training environments that were preparing themfor the day they would take their place in a fire station.

But as I began to learn what the job of being a firefighter is all aboutI also realised that it isn’t just a matter of ‘putting the wet stuff onthe red stuff ’. It is a complicated, diverse and dangerous business.Teamwork is essential for survival on the fire ground and each and everyfirefighter has to be extremely alert at all times. If not, they will pay aprice that can be devastating to them and their fire crew. And it goesbeyond this. A large part of a firefighter’s job involves attending roadaccidents and getting trapped people out of these and other dangerousand nasty situations. It is not a job for the fainthearted. The danger ofthe job was tragically illustrated when over 300 firefighters in New YorkCity perished after the World Trade Center terrorist attack.

To gain more knowledge of the work I found that, apart from doingshifts in the Brisbane city fire station at Roma Street, I would need tosee what happens outside the greater metropolitan area. Firefightingvaries greatly from one region to another across Queensland. The firies(as they call themselves) in Cairns or Charters Towers have a totallydifferent lifestyle, when it comes to firefighting, from that of theirsouthern cousins. The combination of urban permanent firefightersand auxiliary firies in a country town like Ingham calls for an entirelydifferent approach to the job and to combating fire.

What I did learn about firefighters and their families is that they areimmensely dedicated to their job, are totally professional in everythingthey do, and are never backward in coming forward with an idea or asolution to a problem. Firies are ‘doers’. They get in and get it done.They react quickly and with judgement on the fire ground, and withcompassion and expertise during road accident extrications.

There are almost 50 000 firefighters in Queensland and I havemet probably 200 of them in the last year or so as I travelled fromCoolangatta to Cairns researching this book. Each firie has their ownstory and I could not possibly hope to capture the experiences of all ofthem. But I believe that the people I have worked with and interviewedrepresent a cross-section of the men and women who proudly wear theuniform of the QFRS.

I would like to thank all the firefighters who so freely gave of theirtime during our interviews. I am indebted both to ‘B’ Shift at RomaStreet, for their patience, understanding and fine sense of humour, andto all the men and women I rode with on fire trucks across the State.I am indebted to Wayne Hartley, the outgoing Chief Commissioner, forhis support throughout the project. I also thank Michelle Bailey at theBrisbane Courier-Mail for her patience and assistance in searching forphotographs that appear in this book; David Cromb, my liaison officer,and Rob Simpson at Kedron Park who helped steer the project throughin its entirety; and my publisher Ian Bowring, who again has providedme with great support as I pursue my career as a writer. And I thank mywife Gay, who often just looked on in amazement as I rambled on aboutmy ‘second life’ as a wannabe firie.

Gary McKayNovember 2001

PREFACE IX

THE FIRIES

A big red truck thundering down a road with lights flashing and sirenswailing is what most people imagine when they think of firefighters.But a lot has happened behind the scenes in the past twenty years or so.Vehicles, protective clothing and firefighting appliances and equipmenthave improved enormously. Even work roles have changed dramaticallyin the last decade, with more and more rescues now being undertakenby firefighters rather than by tow-truck drivers or ambulance personnel.In the old days, though, firemen attended fires—full stop. RussellMayne, a veteran of those days, says: ‘You never went out of the stationunless you had a fire call.’ And Toowoomba’s Vince Hinder, a firie for25 years, recalls the times when he first rode on the trucks:

Years ago we wore a blue woollen coat, blue drill trousers, elastic-sided boots and a helmet—and that was it. It used to be bad in theold days when we could go as fast as we wanted, and on the old

1

CHAPTER 1

1

Bedfords we’d be hanging off the back of the open wheelers, tryingto crank up the Coventry Climax auxiliary engine for the waterpump. We’d be hanging on to the grab rails rocketing around theplace. Workplace Health and Safety would have had a fit if they’dseen what we were doing! These days we have to abide by thespeed limits and stop at red lights.

Today the firefighters are dressed in two layers of clothing and some-times three. They have special protective coats, helmets with a visor andflash hood, and gloves and boots that can withstand enormous heat.While there are not so many big fires these days, the nature of fires haschanged greatly with the heavy use of plastics in our everyday lives. Thefire ground is now more toxic. As Senior Firefighter Hinder puts it:‘In the old days we only put BA [breathing apparatus] sets on if thestation officer thought it was bad enough. We would be spitting blackstuff up out of our lungs for weeks after a fire. These days as soon asthere is smoke the BA set goes on.’

And although firefighters have to abide by the road rules and thismight slow them down to a certain degree on the way to a fire, it pro-tects them and the public. Several people have lost their lives inQueensland when 10-tonne fire trucks and cars have collided. VinceHinder reckons that the scariest part of his job is ‘some of the drivers wehave got on shift!’. Nonetheless, for Station Officer Pat Hopper, whojoined the fire brigade in Cairns in 1973, going off to a fire ‘was excit-ing, something I had never done—riding fire engines with big bells, onopen-wheelers, and wearing nice tailor-made clothes’.

But what sort of people should wear those clothes? Station OfficerTom Franks, an instructor on the recruit course I attended, says:

I want a bloke with discipline, someone that will do as he is toldand also be respectful. He has to be loyal, have a bit of intestinalfortitude and be reliable. If I am off somewhere trying to get infor-mation about whether there is a rescue requirement, I want toknow that they are ready to go while I’m away. A firefighter has gotto have initiative, be a team player and be decisive.

Throughout my travels in Queensland, I asked the same question ofpeople who have been firefighters for over twenty years and would have

2 THE FIRIES

seen many firies come and go during that time. The responses werevaried but followed a common thread. Area Director Ray Eustace inMaryborough thinks it’s important that a firie ‘be personable and get onwith people, get his work done, not be lazy . . . the better ones aretradespeople, especially when using rescue tools’. He also prefers peoplewith ‘some life skills and who are stable’. Many people told me thatyounger firies seem to be less suitable in terms of fitting in with crews.It was important to have ‘someone who can get along; a team playerwith a sense of humour’. High academic achievement was not seen asimportant. Vince Hinder says: ‘One bloke doesn’t know everything, butbetween us we know a lot. I want a bloke you can trust, a team man,who won’t turn tail and leave you.’

Fred Heiniger joined the fire brigade in 1973. He recalls that thechief officer would ‘know the recruits’ character’, as most applicantswere locals. But he adds:

You need a bloke who is mature, who has been around a bit. Todaythere is a lot of study involved and it requires dedication. You need‘hands on’ guys, teamwork is important and an individualist is notgoing to get on. If you are not a team player then you’re not worthtwo bob. If you can’t cop a kick in the guts occasionally, then youare not worth two bob either, because you’re going to get themfrom the job you go to—or just from things that happen. You needa sense of humour.

A lot of the more senior officers and firefighters worry about thecurrent selection process. The waiting list to become a firefighter ishuge and in 1999 only about 200 were selected out of 5000 or so whoapplied. Many who came in were academically bright, but that does notnecessarily translate into being a good firefighter on the fire ground.Dick Gledhill, who served in two armies and is a senior firefighter inTownsville, was critical of the apparent emphasis in the selectionprocess: ‘Too many academics in the officers lacked CDF [commonsense] and ended up hopeless on the fire ground.’ Station Officer JackWensley of Toowoomba agrees: ‘We have gone too far and oversteppedthe mark with academic requirements.’ Graham Cooke, an area direc-tor at Dalby, says that it’s fine to have firies with a good academic record,

THE FIRIES 3

‘but also common sense and a level of practical quality is required’.Barry Salway at Nambour station comments: ‘The academics aren’t thatgood, but we still need some to move through and become officers.’

What was unsaid was that the men in uniform want more of theirown officers in positions of management in their corporate head officeat Kedron Park.

Much of the criticism of the promotion process, which is now basedon qualifications rather than length of experience, is centred on the factthat ‘in five years a bloke can be an officer in charge of a crew at a majorincident and that is not good. Many of the younger officers lack respectfor the older firies and their knowledge’.1 In a fire crew of an officer andthree firefighters (‘one and three’) there can sometimes be more than50 or 60 years of experience travelling in the front of the truck. No twoincidents are ever the same and the vast experience base, I was told,should be used to advantage instead of relying solely on learning frombooks. Station Officer Pat Hopper of Cairns was outspoken on the issueof officers rising through the ranks too quickly. ‘These days we aregetting intellectuals who don’t want to get their hands dirty, but want tobe an officer tomorrow. It’s a mistake and I don’t like it.’ SeniorFirefighter Russell Mayne adds:

I have worked with blokes over the years who couldn’t string asentence together but made the best firemen and were justunbelievable blokes. Other guys, who have got up to be officerswith all the knowledge in the world, you wouldn’t want them toblow out a match!

But, in the main, aspiring firefighters have their wings clipped by theolder, wiser and highly experienced firefighters as they move throughthe ranks. Most appreciate the experience around them and the wiseofficer will always look to his team for advice and opinion beforemaking a decision in a tricky situation. As one 30-year man, StationOfficer Trevor Kidd of Rockhampton, explains, ‘It is a four-mancrew’—and someone in the team will have the right answer.

The firies on shift are a close-knit bunch. No one is allowed to geta big head or to rise too far above the rest of the crew in terms ofrecognition. Consequently any praise is usually faint, and criticism is

4 THE FIRIES

prolonged and loud if anyone makes a slight error in judgement. It’s allin good fun and chiacking is prevalent on shift. Russell Mayne explains:

You have to have a thick skin because there are certainly a lot ofblokes gibing each other around the station and I have seen guysjust fall apart under that. It is just part of the fire service. I don’tthink we are supposed to do it because we have to be politicallycorrect and all that, but it is still there.

Teamwork is essential in firefighting because very few jobs can bedone single-handed—safely. Russell adds: ‘You have got to be a teamplayer, you’re a part of a team. If you want to be a one-off man then youshouldn’t be here.’

Few firefighters think that a firie has to be a particularly courageousperson. The courage a fire crew show comes from the teamwork theydisplay and their willingness to take calculated risks without endanger-ing themselves or their mates. Senior Firefighter Wayne McLennan ofTownsville prefers someone who is prepared to listen, to take things onboard. He says that a firie does not especially have to be ‘super-physical’,because a mix of ‘sizes’ is good for various jobs. He adds: ‘You don’thave to be courageous. It’s better not to be foolhardy and risk makingmistakes.’ In other words, don’t rush in. Look, assess and then decideon a course of action.

Many firies want someone alongside them who is observant,switched on and, in Station Officer Kevin Neilsen’s words, ‘someonewith honesty, physical ability, integrity and a stand-out personality’. Hehas to be able to think for himself and show some initiative.

Barry Salway sums things up:

A firefighter has to be community-minded because the commu-nity are our employers and they are paying a fire levy. I believe it isa young person’s job, and you have to be physically active. Age 55is the time to retire. Late inductees are no use because you don’tget the benefit out of them. It’s a big investment to train peoplebecause you don’t stop training. You learn something every day,you’re always learning. Every job you go to is different, every inci-dent is different, every person you talk to is different and everyone

THE FIRIES 5

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has different ideas. It is a constant learning curve from day oneuntil retirement.7

The QFRS

The Queensland Fire and Rescue Service is a State Government bodyand part of Queensland’s Department of Emergency Services structure.The Service is responsible for the protection of people, property and theenvironment from fire and chemical incidents, and (in conjunctionwith other agencies like the State Emergency Service) for the rescue ofpeople trapped in vehicles or buildings or caught up in other emer-gencies. More than 2200 full-time or permanent firefighters, 1800part-time auxiliaries and staff, and about 45 000 Rural Fire Servicevolunteers make up the operational staff of the Service. They protect apopulation of over 3.5 million Queenslanders living in urban, semi-rural and rural communities.

QFRS firefighters in the financial year 1999–2000 responded to50 425 callouts—a record. This meant that across the State a fire truckwent out through a station house door once every five minutes of everyday. But almost half (23 700) of the callouts were false alarms orunfounded incidents, the majority of which were due to avoidableinappropriate workplace practices or to faulty equipment. During thesame period fire crews responded to 14 233 fires and 6426 rescues andother medical emergencies.2

The management and administration of the Service works through asystem of devolved control in eight regions. The regions are shownin Appendix 2. Far Northern Region extends from Cairns through tothe tip of Cape York. Northern Region extends from Townsville to theNorthern Territory border. Central Region is vast and runs fromRockhampton to the southwestern border with NSW and the NT.North Coast Region covers the Bundaberg, Maryborough and coastaldistricts as far south as Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast. SouthwesternRegion is based in Toowoomba and extends to the NSW border pastDalby, Roma and Charleville. Brisbane North Region is small but coversthe densely populated areas of the Brisbane CBD and northern suburbsto Caboolture. Brisbane South Region extends from the CBD and south

6 THE FIRIES


side of the Brisbane River down to the Logan River. SoutheasternRegion is based in Beenleigh and covers the area from Ipswich South tothe Gold Coast down to the Tweed River and NSW border.

The QFRS is the largest fire authority in the nation. It came intoexistence after all the independent and local Fire Brigade Boards,numbering some 81, were amalgamated into the Queensland FireService in 1990. Until then the fighting of fires was a local issue. Firieswere recruited by the local chief fire officer, who normally had a deputy.The firefighters were the chief ’s total responsibility—for wages,promotion, training and welfare. The Fire Brigade Boards were runalong municipal lines and the revenue to pay firefighters and maintaintheir equipment came from insurance companies (five-sevenths), fromlocal government (one-seventh) and from State Government (one-seventh) until 1984/85 when the urban fire levy system was introduced.

In the Brigade Board days, would-be firefighters were usually wellknown to the chief or his deputy and often family ties provided more ofa leg in to the service than the quality of applicant. The standard of fire-fighting expertise varied greatly from one area to another andpromotion was slow—if not stagnant—especially in smaller regions.There was little exchange of information on techniques unless a fire-fighter moved from one area to another and was able to join anotherbrigade. Pay was minimal; discipline was autocratic and extremely strict,with junior firies ‘not saying shit for sixpence’, as one retired firefighterrecalls. The fire stations had to maintain their own buildings and equip-ment before the amalgamation and, in many locations, had to buildtheir own fire appliances, such as pumper trucks, and keep themserviceable. Consequently most firefighters were tradespeople, espe-cially plumbers, fitters, carpenters and welders. In Toowoomba, BobBuckley remembers that the Toowoomba Fire Brigade Board ‘builttheir own fire engines for years’ and the chief officer liked to recruitex-service personnel as they were used to discipline and doing ‘whatthey were told’.

The firefighters have a union to look after their concerns in theworkplace and one of the things that the firies like about it is that thestation officers are part of the same union. At one time, officers were ina different union from those they led at the fire ground, and animositydeveloped in some areas, as Russell Mayne of Noosa station explains:

THE FIRIES 7


There used to be a terrible . . . call it discrimination, I suppose: sortof a ‘them and us’. Before, we had the United Firefighters Unionfor the firemen. Then there was the Fire Officers Association andthe Metropolitan Fire Officers Association and the senior officershad their own thing. The senior officers have still got their ownassociation, but the officers are now with us. Up to the rank ofstation officer we are all in the United Firefighters Union. It’sgood to have the officers in the same union.

There are about seven unions in the QFRS altogether. The otherunions include those for clerks, metalworkers, bootmakers and so on,and might only have a few members from the Service. They are mostlyancillary people who work in the QFRS Stores Section and main-tenance and support areas. But the three main unions are the UnitedFirefighters Union (UFU), the Senior Officers Association (SOA) andthe Queensland Public Services Union.

Neil Smith is a station officer who has become active in the UFUbecause of his time as a junior firefighter. He feels that before amalga-mation of the Boards the ‘playing field’ was a little bit more thanuneven. He says: ‘I have always fought for fairness and equity and aslong as it is fair for everybody, and nobody gets hard done by in any wayshape or form, then I am happy.’ For Neil, along with a fellow stationofficer of Roma Street, Alan Beauchamp, it is about looking at workingconditions and pay. But Neil adds:

We also look at workplace health and safety. I try to get involved ingrievances and if there’s a problem I aim to get involved in it earlywith the big boss. We have a good rapport and I try to get in earlyand talk it out—get through the process earlier before getting to awritten grievance.

The UFU is not what could be termed ‘a militant union’. Its leadershad been through a pretty hard Enterprise Partnership Agreement in2000 and were just signing off on it when this book was beingresearched. The QFRS has had some fairly tough times recently, mainlywith its budget. Neil Smith says: ‘Everybody in the organisation hasconstraints on them and, although the unions would like certain things

8 THE FIRIES


done, they also understand that our bosses are constrained by money.So in the union we try to fight for the best we can get for the dollar wehave got.’ He goes on:

Our area director here [Caloundra] Bob Kettle, is an excellentmanager and does all our budgeting. We always have input into thebudgeting. That has always been a standard thing in the FireService: put it down to the boys first and let them work out whatthey want, get prices for it, put it together and then submit it to thearea director. He will then look at it and if he feels it’s a reallyworthwhile cause they will go to bat for it. And normally we’ll getit—under capital. A lot of things we don’t get because some ofthem are a bit airy-fairy. But the Fire Service generally has a goodsystem that way.

Many people in organisations disike change, but senior officer PeterBeauchamp of Cairns (brother of Alan, and an SOA delegate) says:

The best thing that happened was the amalgamation of all the FireBrigade Boards into one structure. The New Zealand Fire Servicetook ten years to get over their change and we thought we wouldbe through it in five years. But we’re only in our teens—we amal-gamated on 1 July 1990. It brought a wide range of experience andfirefighting communities into one.

The amalgamation did bring some heartache. Several firefighterswho had held a position in local brigades were made redundant or wereunderqualified for what the new organisation needed. Moreover,according to Peter Beauchamp, ‘after the spill in the organisation, with[its original] 81 boards, there were not enough jobs to go around’. As aresult, chief officers were put in position as regional commanders inmajor brigades and deputy chiefs were given jobs as district officers, andso on. ‘There were very few that missed out and they put people in jobs,overranked, and it wasn’t done smart.’ Without decrying their valuableservice, many splendid fire officers, unfortunately, were poor managerswith little business acumen. ‘They didn’t know how to administerbecause the Boards used to do it.’ So some tough decisions had to be

THE FIRIES 9


made when the Queensland Fire Service changed to the corporatestructure of the QFRA in 1996–97, when area directors and even stationofficers found they were managing their own budget and a greaternumber of assets.

Unfortunately, many firefighters believe that because the reorgani-sation wasn’t handled properly in 1990, and then in 1996 createduncertainty for people as to their future, the system lost a lot of corpor-ate knowledge with enforced and voluntary retirements. PeterBeauchamp believes the QFRS is learning from those turbulent times,but admits: ‘We didn’t manage the change process all that well. Truemerit process was not applied. There was too much suffering on thehuman resources side of the equation.’ Peter is State president ofthe Senior Officers Association and says frankly: ‘It wears you down,listening to the gripes. We still haven’t got it right.’ But the Service isworking hard to make sure that the people who staff the organisationare treated well, are looked after in all aspects of their work and remu-neration and get a ‘fair deal’, not least in terms of career structure.

Starting at the bottom of the ladder, the recruits, after graduatingfrom a twelve-week course, become probationary firefighters until, aftertwelve months, they are granted the status of firefighter. They thenwork their way through a series of external examinations under a systemknown as Q-Step, which is a process that gradually takes firefightersthrough five levels to a position where they are granted the diplomastatus of Fire Protection Officer Level 1 (FPO1). After being a seniorfirefighter, with various pay point accreditations (which signify wherethey are in their progression through the qualifications) they canapply—after a mandatory period gaining experience and doing ‘time onthe floor’—to become an officer.

The officer examinations are yet another set of rungs on the ladder tobe climbed and each rung comes with oral, written and practical exam-inations that are extremely tough and test the diverse knowledgerequired if you’re to be an officer in charge of a fire incident. Stationofficers are identified by two pips on the shoulder epaulette or two redbands on the fire helmet. There are several pay points at each of thethree levels for station officers. If individuals wish to move beyondbeing a station officer, a variety of appointments can be filled by firieswith the ‘right stuff ’.

10 THE FIRIES


Each of the eight QFRS regions is broken up into areas and each ofthese has an area director. This rank, the lowest in the senior officercategory, is signified by three pips on the shoulder. The duties areexplained in more detail in Chapter 3. Above the area directors are theassistant commissioners, and above them the commissioner.

Just as this book was going to print in late 2001, the Queensland Fireand Rescue Authority (QFRA) changed its title to the QueenslandFire and Rescue Service (QFRS).

THE FIRIES 11


RECRUIT TRAININGOn the recruit course we just plant the seed of knowledge—or, as we say,they walk out of here with a toolbox of knowledge, of all the different ‘tools’.And when they go to a job, they’ve got to pick which ‘tool’ to work with atthat job.

Station Officer Richard Gorey, Instructor, Recruit Course

John Watson is an area director in Bundaberg and has been a firefighterfor nineteen years. He was introduced to the then Maryborough FireBrigade Board by a mate who was a firie. About to get married, John wasa butcher who had just gone bust in another business and was lookingfor a job with permanency and career opportunities. His father was atrain driver, so he knew what shift work was about.

Another firie, Bob Buckley, is a station officer in Toowoomba with30 years under his belt. He was an Army reservist and used to walk pastthe fire station and notice that it was neat and tidy, had an air of

12

CHAPTER 2


discipline, and ‘looked good from the management side’. He threw inhis job as a stonemason’s labourer and, despite the fact that he took adrop in pay for a while, he felt he had potential to advance. His induc-tion was not without a bit of drama. He had to sit an entranceexamination run by the then chief officer, and Bob recalls: ‘There wereabout six or eight blokes sitting the exam. When the chief left the room,one guy got up and said, “I’m outta here”, and left through the window!’

At the same station at Kitchener Street in Toowoomba, a local farmerwho needed some extra income applied for a job as a gardener at thestation and was drawn into the service when he saw what varied workwas on offer. Today that farmer is the area director in Dalby and GrahamCooke holds no regrets about leaving the land. Similarly, Vince Hinderwas actually working for the Fire Brigade Board as a mechanic, keepingthe fire trucks on the road. In his mid-30s at the time, he had been amechanic since he was seventeen. But, ‘after eighteen months of fixingengines and pumps and looking after seven country stations I wanted achange’. Vince had seen how firefighting operated and wanted to give ita go.

The backgrounds of firefighters are as varied as Queensland itself.Jack Wensley was doing his accountancy with a firm in Toowoomba buthad had enough. ‘I saw the chief officer one day and asked how I couldget in.’ He did his entrance exam and then a series of physical tests, likea fireman’s lift, and was accepted. Some firies have come from other fireservices, like Wayne McLennan in Townsville. He started his careerdoing Country Fire Authority volunteer work in rural Victoria to earnmerit points for his Queen’s Scout’s badge. He was transferred by hiscompany to Tasmania and then a series of chance events changedhis life.

I worked for Gestetner as a photocopier technician and they trans-ferred me to Tasmania, but I wanted to leave. So instead theytransferred me to Townsville. One day I went to Proserpine andforgot to take my shoes. While waiting for the shops to open so Icould buy some shoes, I bought the paper and saw an ad forauxiliary firefighters in Townsville. I became an auxiliary, did thatfor about eight months and then asked to become a permanent.I got the job seventeen years ago, in 1984.

RECRUIT TRAINING 13


Richard Gorey works at Annerley as a station officer. He was origi-nally an airport firefighter but saw an ad in the paper and thought hewould go along and get some information. Before he knew it, he wasswept up in the selection process. He explained his change in job thisway: ‘My big impetus was sitting in the airport fire control centrelooking out over Brisbane and seeing a very large glow in the sky froma woolstore fire and thinking that something was missing in my job.I had to be involved in this.’ There weren’t many airport fires whereRichard was working, although the firies did get a lot of training.

Pat Hopper and Pat Scanlan in Cairns were both looking for a changein lifestyle when they applied only months apart in 1973. And KevinNeilsen was just out of the RAAF in 1970 and lingering on the GoldCoast near his beloved Kirra Surf Life Saving Club when he applied.

I didn’t feel like signing back on again and didn’t really want to goback to Viet Nam. I was down at the old Broadbeach pub in early1971 and ran into two old mates of mine and they told me theywere firies. They asked me to join the fire brigade and I said Ididn’t want to climb out of one uniform straight into another one.But I met a young lady not long after that and we moved intogether and I thought I’d better get a real job. I went across toDavenport Street—that was the HQ of the old fire brigade inthose days—and applied for a job. I did the entrance examinationstraight away and I flew through it because it wasn’t that difficultat the time. I went back home—I think it was a Friday—and on theMonday the deputy chief officer was knocking on the door at7.30 a.m. and asking me to start ASAP. He insisted, and I was in.I spent the next ten weeks being kitted out and on a recruit course,but I was the only guy on it!

Ray Eustace admits: ‘Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to be a firie,I even joined as an auxiliary at seventeen by lying about my age.’ Ray hasnow completed 36 years as a firie. He joined the auxiliary brigade atRedbank, close to Ipswich. Redbank was a small industrial town and anex-army camp and rifle range. Ray served as an auxiliary for two yearsbefore joining the permanents in 1964. He had a rapid indoctrination.His first fire, about a week after he started, resulted from a boiler room

14 RECRUIT TRAINING


explosion at the woollen mill. But he adds: ‘It wasn’t just the big redtruck, it was the action—every day being different, and the excitement.’

In similar vein, Russell Mayne says: ‘It will probably sound silly, butever since I was a kid I loved fire engines and I always wanted to be afireman. I always wanted to do it.’ Russell’s test was not like some otherswhen he applied to join the Brisbane Metropolitan Fire Brigade. ‘Itwasn’t like it is now. You had to do a maths test, an English test, a phys-ical test. And one of the questions was whether you could ride a bike!Because we used to go out “plugging” on pushbikes, checking the firehydrants.’

Neil Smith has been a firefighter for twenty years and joined because‘as a kid I always wanted to be riding around on a big red engine’. Healso had some close relatives who were firies. ‘It’s just a thing you’rebrought up with as a kid—that firefighters are good sorts of blokes.’

Ray Moore was accepted readily into the Townsville Fire Brigade in1964 because he was a carpenter, and tradesmen were always soughtafter to help maintain the stations. When he was on the trucks as ajunior firefighter he turned up at a job, a house on fire, with a manningof one and one. ‘I manned the pump and the officer took the hose in.They were very exciting days!’

Recruit course 45/00

The twelve-week recruit course I attended was conducted at thetraining facility at Lytton, beside the Brisbane River, in the periodFebruary–April 2000. That establishment has now been replaced by aworld-class training facility at Whyte Island at the Port of Brisbane, notfar from Lytton. On the course were eleven men who had made itthrough a most demanding selection process. Some had waited morethan three years since applying. One of the recruits was German-bornSven Diga. His story is typical of the men who were on the course. Butfirst he had to attend a driving school and gain a heavy vehicle licence athis own expense just so that he could meet the selection criteria.

In 1997 I saw the ad in the paper, got my certificates [First AidCertificate and Resuscitation Certificate] together, and so on. The

RECRUIT TRAINING 15


day I turned up to apply there were about 400 applicants present.It was daunting because I knew they needed only 200 out of fiveor six thousand overall. I was nervous, but I kept my head.I sweated for a week and about 80 per cent of the original appli-cants were culled on the initial test. It took me something likeeight months to write my selection criteria response, with helpfrom quite a few people. On the physical side I had trained for itbut I failed the hose drag and dummy tests on a trial [practice] testand so I had to work up to it.

The physical aptitude entrance examination is a series of tests. Failureon any test at any time implies instant removal from the examination.There are four disciplines to be completed in twelve minutes.Applicants wear a breathing apparatus on their back throughout. Theyhave to erect and dismantle a ladder, run to an appliance (truck), take afully charged hose with 1000 KPA pressure and hold it for a minute.Then the water is turned off and with the hose still charged (full ofwater) they have to drag it alone over a set distance for 60 seconds. Thenthe hose is cranked up again and has to be held for another 60 secondsdirected at a target. Then the applicants have to run fifteen metres (threelevels) up a hose tower and lift a 15-litre drum of water up the towerwithout the rope or the drum touching the tower or the handrail. Aftergoing back down the tower they have to drag a 70-kilogram dummybackwards around a 60-metre marked course—still with the BA set ontheir backs.

All this has to be completed in twelve minutes. Sven Diga continues:

I did my first practice in 13 minutes 30 seconds . . . and was Ipanicking! The following week I tied a rope to my Corolla car andpractised dragging the car up and down my driveway. Everymorning and afternoon, before and after work. On the next testI did it in 9.58 seconds.

During the final physical tests, the applicants wore a wristband, andif they failed a test at any time, the wristband was cut off and they wereescorted off the premises and not allowed to watch the remainder of theexamination. Thirty applicants were physically tested at a time. On

16 RECRUIT TRAINING


Sven’s day at Lytton, three or four candidates failed the initial runningtest and were removed. By the time Sven got to the hose drag only two-thirds of the candidates remained.

Overall the physical testing lasted 60–90 minutes and was followedby tests of dexterity and other physical attributes. There were alsomedical checks. Finally there was an interview with several senior fireofficers plus a non-uniform staff member from the Human ResourcesDivision. Sven says: ‘We were culled down even further after theselection criteria and referees’ reports. During the interview we wereasked about various aspects of the job and our reactions to certainsituations and we had to know five of the sections in the Anti-Discrimination Act.’ Sven finished with an order-of-ranking of 155, andthen had to wait almost three years before he got on to his recruitcourse.

The recruits I was with were a fairly typical group of trainees, accord-ing to the recruit training manager and highly experienced firefighterStation Officer Geoff Hastie. Sitting at morning tea and asking the menwhat drove them to become a firefighter, I heard responses rangingfrom wanting a job with security to wanting one with a challenge. Somesaid it was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream and that ever since theywere little kids they’d wanted to be firemen. An ex-soldier and youthworker said that he wanted a job where he could do something for thecommunity, because this was a large part of job satisfaction for him.Others who had worked in occupations requiring teamwork and teamspirit to achieve the task said that that was their main motivation forjoining the Fire and Rescue Service.

All of the men were fit and one recruit, who was closing on 40 yearsof age, was a good deal fitter than most of his contemporaries in CivvyStreet. The age range of these recruits was 22–37, with an average of28.6 years, and put them in the category of ‘mature-age students’. Thefirst impression I gained when watching the men was their commonfocus on the training being delivered. They were highly motivated.Their previous occupations were listed as storeman, house painter, hirecar manager, mechanic, ski instructor, lifeguard, plumber, policeman,ex-soldier and youth worker, bank clerk and teacher.

The eleven starters were all male. There are only eight full-timefemale firefighters actively serving on the trucks at the time of writing.

RECRUIT TRAINING 17


There are many more female firefighters in the auxiliary brigades andamong rural fire service volunteers. As well, many women wearing theQFRS uniform are employed in areas other than firefighting, especiallyin communications at the various fire communication (Firecom)centres around the State.

Most recruits resided at home during their training, but if they livedmore than 75 kilometres from Lytton they were domiciled at a localmotel, the Koala Inn, somewhat irreverently called ‘Kamp Krusty’ bythe inmates. During the course the trainees were allowed free travelhome twice, usually at the four and eight week mark.

Apart from the Lytton complex, facilities included the BA andHazmat training centre at Roma Street station in the CBD and driver-training facilities at Mt Cotton, south of Brisbane. The Lytton mess(or as some older men called it, the ‘crib room’), where the trainees hadlunch, was decorated with dozens of plaques and graduation photo-graphs of past courses. Some were humorous reminders that instructorsare also human, but all demonstrated the obvious pride of recruits intheir achievement in passing the course.

The training

The aim of the twelve-week course is to produce a basic firefighter.It prepares recruits to the point at which they are able to take their placeon an appliance at a station as a number three crewmember. The coursecovers a wide range of topics:

Fire theory, including the Urban search and rescuenature and behaviour of fire techniques (USAR)

Organisation and structure Road accident rescue (RAR)of the QFRS Communications

Firefighting drills Live or hot fire training,Equipment, appliances, including flashover and

pumps etc. backdraught phenomenaCompressed air breathing Gas and compartmental fire

apparatus (BA) trainingMethods of entry

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Electrical fires and Hazardous materials (Hazmat)de-energising power lines Defensive driving techniques

Incident management Bushfires

Every day the recruits assemble on the parade ground at 8.00 a.m. Aninspection parade follows a brief rollcall, and one of the instructors willdetail any special administration arrangements for the day. The day isusually broken up into morning lectures covering the theory of varioussubjects and then practical handling and exposure to the material, andfinally practice and drills in the afternoons. The day is non-stop apartfrom a break for morning tea and for lunch. Each recruit has been fittedout with the basic firefighting clothing of dungarees, overtrousers,turnout coat and boots, gloves and helmet. They each have their nameon the back of their helmet. Training finishes for the day around4.20 p.m. Most recruits find their evenings are pretty full studying whatthey have covered during the day and this places a strain on the living-out students who go home to a wife and kids all demanding theirattention. Some men admitted studying for up to four hours per night,finishing at 11 p.m., and then getting up again at 5 a.m. to get to Lyttonon time to start another day.

The subject matter is detailed and complex, but the course isdynamic, constantly changing to ensure that the latest techniques andprocedures are taught to the trainees. The material is usually deliveredin modules, with examinations after each module. If the recruits bombout in a certain subject area they face a retest and can seek assistancefrom their mentor/instructor to ensure that they fully understand wherethey have made a mistake.

The instructors on this course are drawn from stations around Brisbaneand are volunteers. They must be a qualified station officer to be aninstructor. The student/instructor ratio is three to one and each instructoris appointed as a mentor to at least three recruits, whom he will guide andadvise throughout the course. Most of the lecture material is delivered bythe senior instructor and the station officer course instructors. For somemodules such as RAR, hot fire training and defensive driving, visitingspecialists in those fields will deliver the training. When the recruits tackleBA training at Roma Street station, the instructors are full-time specialistsin operating the various smoke chambers in the complex.

RECRUIT TRAINING 19


Many of the station officers who have instructed on the recruitcourse do it because they have a flair for delivering training and like tobe involved in starting someone else’s career. Station Officer RichardGorey is 35, single and one of the instructors. He has been an officer foralmost a year and with the QFRS for eight years. Prior to that he spentthree and a half years as an airport firefighter. Richard says:

The thing that I have got out of this recruit course is that I haveincreased my own knowledge base, I have revised all of myprevious knowledge. I have learnt a lot of new skills that I wasn’ttaught when I was a probationary firefighter, like with the hot firetraining. I also get the chance to develop my instructional tech-nique and also on a personal basis there is a certain amount ofsatisfaction in that I helped start somebody else’s career. I haveenjoyed interacting with the guys. I like having a laugh with them,I like having a joke with them and trying to show them, as muchas I can from my experience, what the fire service has been.

The instructors mix and match the recruits into various teams ofthree and four so that they can man the training vehicles (old model firetrucks) parked out in the yard. That is a deliberate action to make surethat the recruits get used to working with everybody else on the courseand to know their strengths and weaknesses. It all comes down to team-work, even in recruit training. Richard Gorey told me about thequalities he looks for in a firefighter and their impact on a team.

If we all had exactly the same qualities the team would notflourish. We need guys who may be a little bit brash, a little bitupfront, a little bit outspoken. We also need guys who will sit backand have a look and say: ‘Yeah, he’s doing that right. I’ll watch thisand maybe go and stand over there and make this a little bit saferfor him.’ And then there are other guys that might be the technicalboffins. So you need a mix.

Teamwork and discipline are essential when the crews are doing wetdrills in the yard, but the instructors don’t want blind obediencebecause each fire situation is different and they want to see the menusing their own initiative, as it is the key to success. The instructors

20 RECRUIT TRAINING


work very hard in trying to inculcate initiative and flexibility in therecruits, who are taught to be observant and proactive on the job—‘seeing something that is serious enough to alert somebody . . . knowingwhen to instigate something and when not to’.

After Week 6, the pressure is built up and callout drills are held irregu-larly throughout the day regardless of what else is occurring. Therecruits must don their helmet, gloves, overtrousers, top boots andjacket, report to their crew station on their appliance and be ready tomove—all within 60 seconds. At first it takes several minutes for therecruits to get their act together and to note from the callout over the PAsystem exactly where it is that their callout is to take them.

One day the trainees were sitting in the firies mess having lunch andtalking casually with me when the PA system announced a callout.Sandwiches were dropped half-eaten; one trainee desperately tried togulp down the remaining contents of his Coke bottle as he hastilydeparted the room. Within two minutes the men had their turnout gearon (or most of it) and headed off to their allocated fire appliance. Afterseveral minutes, and once their trucks were rolling, they were recalled tothe lecture room. Each practice turnout drill is followed by a debriefing,which is conducted in no uncertain terms. Then the recruits have toconduct a critical self-examination of what went right and wrong. In thiscase almost every crew got the address for the fire call wrong, as theyfailed to stop and listen to the PA system and then double check theaddress given. In their haste they had created waste—and if it had beenfor real, it might have been waste of life or property. The recruits listenedsoberly to their after-action report, and when they were called out laterthat same day they turned out just as fast but they all had the ‘address’correct. It was a valuable lesson and it wasn’t lost on the trainees, whowere reminded that ‘getting there’ quickly is good but going to the rightplace is even better. The turnout times dropped rapidly after the firstcouple of days and everyone was going in the right direction.

Situational drills emphasising getting water onto the fire, urgency,correct procedures, safety, teamwork, hazards in the job, crew positionsand efficiency are repeated almost ad nauseum. The trainees aredebriefed in detail by the instructors, but by Week 6 the recruits wereconducting their own self-critique before they had lined up to bedebriefed by their own instructor. To experience the realities of the job

RECRUIT TRAINING 21


outside the training yard, the recruits embark on street drills. Thisentails driving around the quieter streets of the adjoining suburbs andgoing into action using street and footpath hydrants to douse down apark or vacant block of land. Watching the roads for markers showingwhere the water hydrants are located is no easy task. But the recruitshave eyes like eagles and when the instructor yells out to them to stopand go into action, they have to make a quick judgement on which wayto run the hoses to the nearest water supply in order to supplement thepumper tank.

Breathing apparatus training

The smoke produced in a house fire is deadly if it is thick enough. It canprevent a reasonable supply of fresh air—more importantly oxygen—from reaching the firefighters. But added to general smoke fromburning wood and other materials is another toxic enemy. The adventof synthetic materials in the construction and covering of modernfurniture, and the use of a wide range of plastics and polyurethane inbuilding materials and elsewhere in the home, has made for anincreased danger to firefighters. The risk of being exposed to toxicchemical fumes has grown markedly—if not literally exploded. Lethalfumes can mix with normal house fire smoke and unless firefighters areprotected they can quickly be overcome. If the exposure is severe orlong enough they will be asphyxiated and die. Most people who perishin house fires have usually died from the effects of smoke or toxic fumesbefore they have been burnt. (For a general account of the nature andbehaviour of fire see Appendix 1.)

Compressed air breathing apparatus (BA) was once only used whenthe smoke was deemed impenetrable. Today the automatic reaction,when a crew turns up at a fire that is ‘going’, is to have the two men onthe hose get into their BA sets as soon as possible. This protects them asthey advance into a burning dwelling from being overcome by smokeand fumes. The breathing apparatus in use today has evolved over a longperiod of time into what is now regarded worldwide as first-class fire-fighting equipment. The ‘Sabre’ BA sets are carried on every firefightingappliance and the firefighters, if warned in time, can emerge from their

22 RECRUIT TRAINING


vehicle fully suited and ready to go. The BA set consists of a cylinderwrapped in a very strong kevlar padding that sits on a protective back-plate made of glass and carbon-filled nylon and attached to a harness.The adjustable shoulder straps and waist belt ensure a snug fit for fire-fighters as they move, crawl, climb and go about their business.

The entire BA set weighs approximately 17.5 kilograms but isergonomically designed to place the weight on the lower back and isreasonably comfortable to wear. The only restriction when wearing themask and helmet is in trying to look straight up—the rear of the helmethits the top of the BA backplate or cylinder, but it is not a real problemand is easily coped with.

The air is drawn to the user through a positive pressure system,which allows the firefighter to suck air in through the full-face maskand expel breath and carbon monoxide out through a ventilation deviceat the lower front of the mask. Visibility out of the mask is good, withabout 150 degrees of frontal visibility. The result is that the firefightercan very confidently enter a burning or smoke-filled building and befully protected from noxious and toxic fumes. The user can speakthrough the mask—although a roomful of recruits preparing toundergo BA training is somewhat reminiscent of a cluster of DarthVader figures as they expel their used air and the mask adds a deep nasalquality to their voices.

Roma Street station in the Brisbane CBD is the main facility for BAtraining. During their course the recruits spend a day on the theorybehind the use and characteristics of the equipment and then, over thenext four days, undergo graduated exposure to its use. By Day 5 of thistraining module, they are confident and competent in the use of BAgear and can take their place alongside more senior firefighters. Butusing BA equipment is not just a matter of throwing on a harness,cylinder and mask and diving into a smoke-filled house. The air cylin-der is capable of holding 1800 litres of compressed air (which equates to200 times the normal pressure). Use of the air is strictly regulated, andan average use of about 35 ‘safe minutes’ with a full cylinder (tenminutes always being held in emergency reserve) must be recorded bythe crew’s number two (the pump operator) on the appliance. If thefirefighters are at a large job and many BA units are in use, a ‘fresh airstation’ or ‘base’ is established and a BA controller is appointed whose

RECRUIT TRAINING 23


sole job is to monitor the firefighters and their use of the air. Each fire-fighter has a gauge which indicates how much air is left in the cylinder,and if they forget to check, a warning whistle sounds which gives thefirie about ten minutes to retreat from the fire and obtain more air.A long-duration cylinder, which greatly increases the capacity of thewearer, is sometimes used when situations demand. However, thephysical fatigue of operating in full level protective clothing with a maskin intense heat must be taken into account and consequently the shorterduration cylinder is the more commonly used.

Each firefighter is logged in and out as they depart or return to thefresh air station where reserve cylinders are held. The BA controllerkeeps track of when firefighters should be returning and, if they havenot returned when their air is due to run out, alerts them through thestation officer or the section commander. The danger in a smoke-filledenvironment is very real and if someone has not returned to replenishthe air then an immediate search is launched to determine the firie’swhereabouts.

The recruits on Course 45/00 were being instructed by Don McKay(no relation to the author). A 31-year veteran who has been a qualifiedstation officer for some 24 years, Don is based at Roma Street andimparts training to the recruits through a series of lessons, lectures andpractical exercises. The Roma Street facility has been in existencesince 1970 and is world-class. From the street it would not even benoticed, but behind the four-storey brick facade is a complex combi-nation of training rooms that replicate a ship’s interior from the bilgesto the weather deck and incorporating an engine room. The mockupincludes two holds and ladders and gangways that would be found onalmost any reasonably sized vessel entering Brisbane Port. Alongsidethis training block is a set of rooms and adjustable partitions that canbe used to replicate a dwelling, a set of offices, a boarding house orwhatever takes Don’s fancy. Another room contains a series of tunnelsthat are used to expose firefighters to crawling with equipment on andmanoeuvring through confined spaces with a BA set on their backs.A further room contains chemical containers and is used for chemicalhazard training.

The entire training complex can be climatically adjusted for smoke(non-toxic), heat and light. The system is controlled through a

24 RECRUIT TRAINING


centralised computer and smoke and heat are ducted (as in an air-conditioning system) into the replica sites. Light can be adjusted from‘good’ to absolutely pitch black and, as the recruits continue throughthe week, it gets seriously dark at the bottom of the training areas. Byweek’s end the recruits are climbing up and down ladders and search-ing rooms for dummies, in temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius.The smoke is so dense that you can only just see your hand in frontof your face. This is definitely not the place for anyone with claus-trophobia.

Before they are split into teams for their next exercise, the recruitsare given a refresher on room and building search techniques. DonMcKay runs through the use of their 6-metre personal safety lines toensure that the recruits understand the practicality of using linesto find their way back out of a situation if their torch fails or theirradios are rendered unserviceable. They run through the line signalsthat have to be committed to memory in case they get into trouble orare being recalled to assist others. The recruits are given their objectiveand then use their training, initiative, personal skills and commonsense to achieve their goal. The training of these mature-age studentsis often one of ‘do it the best way you can with the equipment andtraining that you have’ rather than a set ‘you must do it this way’approach. Flexibility and initiative are the key words. The recruits drawtheir BA sets, which have been replenished during the morning teabreak, and with quiet efficiency set about testing them—pulling themon, attaining a good seal of the mask on the face and checking the airlevel. The relative quiet of the room is punctuated by shriek whistlesof the sets indicating, when the air is connected, that a positive flow isestablished to the mask. Mask harnesses are drawn and adjusted overthe recruits’ heads and helmets shoved on top. Gloves are the last itemput on. After checking in their BA set identification tags, the recruitsmove out for the exercise.

They enter the replica ship through a basement-level watertightdoor and crawl through a very narrow opening where they have to takeoff their BA set but still wear their mask and maintain their air flow andthen emerge on the other side and put their set back on. It is toughwork crawling along with full kit and BA set, mask and helmet in thevery hot, humid and smoky conditions. It calls for close teamwork and

RECRUIT TRAINING 25


cooperation and the trainees work quickly in pairs to ensure that theyget through the obstacle quickly and safely.

After 35 minutes of intense physical work that sees them haulingcargo nets full of sandbags from a ‘ship’s hold’ and transferring it downinto another, they depart through the tunnels and emerge back into thegallery. The recruits have their name and cylinder ID tags checked offby the BA controller, who is a station officer instructor assisting DonMcKay. The recruits return to the lecture room for debriefing. Duringtheir exercises in the BA chamber they are monitored by their normalinstructors, who lead the debriefing.

The trainees are literally soaked from the waist up from working inthe close, hot environment of the BA chamber. Their cotton drill shirtsare plastered to their bodies as if they had been in a shower. Their hairis matted and the air is thick with sweat. The recruits draw long anddeep on their water bottles as they rehydrate before the next trainingexercise. Four times this day they will suit up, don their BA sets andlaunch into the chamber: searching for ‘bodies’, clearing rooms, climb-ing through tunnels and familiarising themselves with the BAequipment. It is hot, hard and physically demanding work, but therecruits are doing well. Their instructors have been with them thewhole way and emerge just as wet and sweaty as their charges—a caseof ‘do as I do’, not ‘do as I say’, and the leadership displayed is not loston the trainees. Their air-litreage use, which is recorded as they enterand depart the BA chamber, indicates to Don McKay on Day 2 of thistraining module that all of the recruits are now through the ‘anxious’phase of wearing the equipment. In the words of one recruit, GlenMcKissack, they are ‘totally confident’ in their equipment. They wouldhave to be, as the smoke inside the chamber could easily induce aserious coughing fit within a minute unless one was wearing a BA set.From now on their training will often include the use of these sets.

Live (hot) fire training

At the time I was there the Lytton facility housed the QFRS Live FireTraining Unit. The Live Fire Training Unit is now at Whyte Island.The unit conducts live fire exercises for station shifts and supplements

26 RECRUIT TRAINING


the training conducted by Geoff Hastie and his fellow instructors. OnDay 2 of hot fire training a team of specialists move in to assist thenormal instructors with the latest knowledge of firefighting adoptedfrom overseas and Australian experience. Peter Mountains, Ross Ginnsand Barry Salway provide slick lectures using the latest audiovisual aidsand quickly take the recruits through a morning devoted to firecharacteristics. When the QFRS wanted people to introduce theconcepts of flashover and backdraught to the stations, so they couldtrain the firefighters in real firefighting, Barry Salway, a 26-yearveteran, volunteered for the job because: ‘I have seen the need for realhands-on hot fire training in the stations. I did the training at Lyttonand then kept in contact and eventually became an instructor.’ Therecruits are constantly questioned after each module and asked againand again what different properties there are in a fire and what theterminology they are attempting to take on board means in real termsout on the fire ground.

In their mess they are given an emphatic demonstration using aportable, gas-fired simulator (called a boom box), which shows quiteremarkably the effects of flashover and backdraught. This is thenfollowed up with another small-scale demonstration using a mockup ofa basic building (called the doll’s house), to show the smoke effects andthe warning signs of an explosion. There is heavy emphasis on theindicators of an impending explosion. Barry Salway explains the boombox and doll’s house training aid:

The boom box is used to demonstrate a backdraught scenario. Italso demonstrates the lower and upper flammability ranges . . . weadd LPG or propane gas to the boom box and what you need is amix of propane gas and air before it will actually ignite. What theboom box shows you is the minimum amount of propane gas andair where you will actually get an ignition. It will also show you theupper flammability range where it can be too rich to burn. Butwhen more air is let in (to represent a window being broken, forexample) it can bring it back to [the point at which it] can actuallybackdraught. The ignition for that is a battery pack in the boombox handle and a pilot arc in the corner of the boom box. Thebigger the bang the bigger the ideal mix of the gases.

RECRUIT TRAINING 27


By mid-afternoon the recruits are in their turnout gear and BA setsand about to enter a blackened container. A fire has been set using sixsheets of chipboard in a corner of the room. They carry their hoses inwith them so they can watch the effect of fog spray on the gasesaccumulating menacingly above their helmeted heads. The temperaturehigh up inside the container rises to about 1000 degrees Celsius withintwenty minutes and thick toxic smoke begins to fill the top third of thecontainer. Each recruit is taken right up to the flames and shown inmeticulous detail how to cool the gases and reduce the chance offlashover, smoke gas explosion and backdraught. They emerge after25 minutes on BA and are hot and visibly affected by the high temper-atures inside the room. Even though one end of the container was leftopen for safety reasons, just pushing a hand up into the smoke wasenough to convince the recruits that low down on the floor was theplace to be.

At one time firefighters went by the adage that ‘a fire is not out untilthere’s water running out the front door’. With the characteristics offires changing with the advent of synthetic materials, firies can nolonger just charge in and hose something down until a flood appears.The smoke and unlit gases hovering overhead are as much a danger asthe burning item to be extinguished. By cooling the gases the firefight-ers are able to reduce the thermal environment to a manageable stateand then safely bring the fire to an end. It is hot, sweaty, hands-on stuff,but the training lessons are brought home in no uncertain manner. Afterretreating from the container, the recruits sit with their hot fire instruc-tors and are debriefed about what they have seen and felt. It is up closeand very personal and the practical demonstration hammers home thetheory to the recruits. They sit like sponges around the streams ofinformation flowing out of the instructors and don’t hesitate to askquestions if they’re unsure. They have been encouraged to ask ques-tions because their lives and the lives of their workmates could dependon how well they know their subject matter.

Week 8 of the course sees the recruits putting many of their new-found skills into practice and they spend days going through drills andtechniques for extinguishing fires where propane or LPG gas containersare on fire. One of the most dangerous situations a firefighter canconfront is a boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion (BLEVE) fire.

28 RECRUIT TRAINING


It is dangerous because it is difficult to determine just how much of theliquid, such as LPG, has been vented from the fire scene and what stageof meltdown or disintegration the containers might be at when the firiesarrive. Prior to the live fire training, the recruits are given theory lessonsand watch a video of horrific fires that have occurred in Mexico andNorth America. A fire in Mexico City at an LPG plant, where 300people were killed and 7000 injured, is included, as is a graphic incidentin which a firefighter in the US was literally blown off his turntableladder and killed.

Despite the fact that the drills are a training situation, the heat isintense and one recruit has his overtrousers scorched slightly as areminder that the fire is indeed very real. The instructors advancetoward the flames with their team, using a spray nozzle to protect theteam as they close to within half a metre of the roaring gas flames andcut off the supply of gas to the fire. It is impossible to stand unprotectedwithin 25 metres of the fire that Geoff Hastie is controlling from theoperator’s position only 30 metres distant.

Each recruit is placed in the position of branchman as the recruits putout fires in a vehicle, a set of large LPG vertical tanks and a very largeLPG industrial container. It is hot, wet and dangerous but the recruitsmove in quite calmly, thanks to their training and equipment. It is hardto believe that eight weeks earlier their reaction on seeing an out ofcontrol BLEVE fire would have been to depart as quickly as possible.Instead, now they are advancing, step by step, into the inferno.

While the recruits are learning how to put BLEVE fires out, a shiftteam from Kemp Place station in the Brisbane CBD arrive with threeappliances and are put through another phase of training by the LiveFire Training Unit. The fire simulation in this case is done in 12-metresteel containers especially prepared for the purpose. The training isconducted under the watchful eye of the senior instructor, GrahameRay. Grahame is a station officer seconded for the last two years fromBrisbane South Region. His task is to pass on the latest techniques inbackdraught and flashover recognition and fighting.

Backdraught occurs when a fire is starved of oxygen and at somestage the air it needs to continue burning is inadvertently fed in througheither a door being opened or, perhaps, a window finally breaking in theheat of the fire. The sudden inrush of air causes the fire to burn back

RECRUIT TRAINING 29


through highly charged smoke and the fire can entrap and severelyinjure even fully protected firefighters in its path. Flashover occurswhen the pyrolysis gases ignite because the air mixture becomes superhot. Grahame amplifies the importance of recognising the indicators forthese two very hazardous situations by showing a helmet whose visorhad melted when its owner and another firefighter were caught in abackdraught in a Brisbane fire eighteen months previously. What isscary is that this nearly fatal event occurred from a simple fire in a pileof mattresses. But incorrect application of water to the fire caused aspontaneous combustion reaction in the heavily charged smoke (whichis unlit fuel) above and behind the firefighters.

Training in coping with high-risk combustion is vital and Grahamespends the morning showing the men from Kemp Place how back-draught and flashover occur and what signs to look for. The trainingmust be conducted in full kit and with BA gear as even though thesmoke is non-toxic it could still injure the firefighters. Grahamedemonstrates to the men how the Swedish Fire Service has perfected asystem of reducing the danger by applying water in a different mannerto the unlit gases above a fire. Backdraught can also occur outside abuilding and Grahame moves on to explain the problem of gases andsmoke igniting and creating danger not only to firefighters but to casualobservers in the street.

While waiting for the containers to be prepared the three Kemp Placecrews are put through their training on the gas pad at Lytton and fromthe outset it is obvious that the men have worked closely together, asthey efficiently attack their targets. It is hard to hear the commands oftheir station officers over the roar of the escaping ignited gas as the firiesmove steadily across the concrete pad, supported by their safety-linemen and hosing down the target area to avoid an explosion. Even afterthe fire has been extinguished the crews retire in step, with their spraynozzles providing a protective curtain in case the fire re-ignites withoutwarning. Just 50 metres from the target the air temperature is above50 degrees Celsius. The emphasis for these trained firefighters is oncrew work, teamwork positioning and branch and hose work. Each manis an integral part of the group that has just advanced into the searingflames coming from the gas cylinders. The recruits, not surprisingly,look on with great interest.

30 RECRUIT TRAINING


Road accident rescue

About half of a firefighter’s ‘real jobs’, in the sense of physically attend-ing incidents, are road accidents. Not all car crash victims are entangledin the wreckage, but if they are then it is the job of the firies to extricatethem in concert with the ambulance officers attending the scene. Insome places the State Emergency Service crews also perform theserescues.

The instructor brought in to conduct the road accident rescue (RAR)training was Station Officer Ian Ames. Firefighters often attend morerescues than fires if they work at a station near a major arterial road. Anexample is Mt Gravatt in Brisbane South Region, which is close to theSoutheast Freeway. Ian was seconded to instructional duties fromMt Gravatt, where he normally manned an emergency tender, an appli-ance that carries every conceivable piece of kit required for RAR.On the day I first met Ian he was still pumped up from his team’swinning the Queensland RAR championship held at Southport. Histeam of five (four firefighters and an ambulance officer) managed tobeat off seven other regional teams to take the trophy. It is a covetedprize and Ian was obviously proud of his team’s efforts.

During the five days of RAR training, the recruits are given thetheory behind what has to be done on arriving at a road accident: thecorrect procedure to reduce the likelihood of further damage and ad-ditional accidents, plus the tools, the other procedures and the dangers.Graphic still and video footage provided by commercial televisionstations allows the recruits to see what carnage they may be faced withand the best way to deal with certain situations. Ian’s extensive experi-ence allows the trainees’ questions to be fielded easily and competently.Time is spent on trauma and critical incident stress management as Ianexplains the downside of attending RAR turnouts and how best to dealwith the problem. There is no false machismo present as Ian explainsjust what happens in the ‘real world’ of RAR. He runs through theextensive stress counselling system from debriefs, to peer support, totrauma counsellors and the need for such counselling after a severelytraumatising event.

Out of the classroom, the recruits are faced with coming to termswith the tools of RAR. Portable hydraulic equipment such as the ‘jaws’,

RECRUIT TRAINING 31


a powerful yet highly manoeuvrable tool, is used for cutting off roofsand doors of motor vehicles. I was handed the tool and with very littleeffort—apart from holding the device the correct way—took the roofpillar off a Toyota Corona in less than twenty seconds. Another devicecalled a ‘ram’ allows firefighters to spread or push crushed car com-ponents away from trapped victims to allow immediate first aidand disentanglement to proceed. Cars provided from Brisbane CityCouncil’s dumped-car lot are used to allow the recruits the necessarypractice to quickly and safely remove trapped road accident victims. It isnot just a matter of walking up to a vehicle and cutting a door off a car,as there are many things to consider, like a safe working area, vehiclestability, first aid, flammable hazards and site management.

Graduation Day, 19 April 2000

During the three-month course there was a metamorphic change as therecruits adjusted to being pushed and driven from point A to point Band back again as drills and techniques were hammered into them sothat they became instinctive. The trainees were yelled at and givendifficult and demanding tasks, and if they screwed up were yelled atsome more and made to do it again. The emphasis was on doing it rightthe first time and only practice and perfect practice would make theinstructors happy. Richard Gorey, commenting on the recruits’ changein attitude as they neared the end of the course, said:

When they first came here they were probably like people thatarrive in a different country that don’t speak the language. Theywere coming into an organisation which the majority of them knewvery little about—if anything. They knew what firemen were, theyknew what firemen did to a certain extent, but they didn’t knowmuch else about the fire service. I think they now have confidencebecause of the training they’ve received. They are getting to thatpoint where they’re starting to be eager to test themselves andthey’re enjoying their training and want more of it. They want tobe pushed to their limit and I think they want to know their limit.They are starting to develop their personalities as firefighters.

32 RECRUIT TRAINING


The big day finally arrived and a graduation ceremony was conductedat Lytton. The recruits’ families, numbering about 70 people in all,had travelled from near and far to witness a graduation parade thatwould involve the presentation of prizes for top student and for variousmodules in the course.

The recruits were piped on parade by the QFRS Pipes and Drumsband led by pipe major and station officer Malcolm Ketchion. A simpleceremony followed addresses by senior officers in the QFRS and anaddress by Commissioner Mike Hall. After a parade inspection the fire-fighters marched off and after a short break, when they changed intotheir turnout gear, they put on a spectacular display of firefighting andRAR work. The firefighters then changed into dress uniform andreturned to the parade square. After a reading of the Code of Ethics byGlen McKissack the graduates were presented with their Certificates ofGraduation and individual awards. Finally letters of appreciation werepresented to the instructors who had taught on the course. The tra-ditional hat tossing to bring to an end the first day of the rest of theirlives followed the march off.

While chatting later with families and friends the recruits were askedwhat they thought was the most challenging or difficult part of thecourse. Scott Dewar thought it was ‘trying to remember everything,because so much has been put on to us . . . just trying to keep it all inyour head and remember it all’. Greg Forrestall, who had managed anAvis hire car business, thought the hardest part was ‘getting back intostudy mode after ten years out of school; also the physical side ofthings—it was a lot harder than I would have thought’. Warren Hoskingfound the physical side tough but his instructors said he never shirkeda task. Ex-schoolteacher Glen McKissack found taking orders difficultat first but said: ‘Now that I’m institutionalised it’s okay.’ Blair Parkerthought that the theory side was the hardest and added: ‘After runningaround the yard all day you’ve got to go and do a bit of study at nightand you really don’t feel like doing it.’ Marcus Maffey, a confirmedbachelor, said he thought ironing his own uniforms was the hardest partof the course!

Since Day 1 on the course the eleven men had been drawn very closetogether—in Blair Parkers’ words, ‘a tighter knit group, definitely: weare all there to help each other out, and if anyone’s got a question about

RECRUIT TRAINING 33


anything, we just throw it around and argue about it and in the endwork it all out’. John Ryan is married with two children. He found thatcoming home at night was tough. ‘I needed to put a fair few hours inand balancing that with family life was pretty hard.’ Luke Smith lived inat ‘Kamp Krusty’ and said that living away from his family for twelveweeks wasn’t easy. Glen Urquhart had previously been working in abank and found the transition to daily physical work difficult at first.‘But once I got used to it I was fine.’

Sven Diga chuckled when I asked him to recall a memorablemoment during the course. He had been having some trouble adjustingto their being barked at every time the men made a mistake in the yard.His mentor was Richard Gorey, who has a military style of instructionand is very precise. Sven recalled:

I got off on a bad foot when I tried to run him [Gorey] over witha fire truck in Week 1. I stopped a foot in front of him and he justlooked at me and asked if I really wanted to run him over. He thenactually asked who in the class thought he was an arsehole, andParker and I put our hands up. He said: ‘Well, at least there are twohonest blokes in the room.’ When I look back now, I can under-stand where he was coming from. It wasn’t until the fourth or fifthweek that he started to ease up on us and by Week 8 we wereplaying volleyball together and the pressure was coming slowly off.By Week 12, we were the best of mates.

( Just for the record, Richard Gorey is not an ‘arsehole’ and has greatrapport with the men he instructed. He maintains contact with many ofthe probationary firefighters.)

New boys on the block

Kevin Besgrove is a firefighter in Townsville and graduated about a yearbefore the 45/00 recruit course men. He recalls the time when hearrived brand new and dripping behind the ears at Townsville Southstation. The probationary firefighters were worried that they wouldscrew up or say something inappropriate in front of their fellow fire-

34 RECRUIT TRAINING


fighters, some of whom had been on the trucks for over twenty years.But: ‘The blokes were pretty good, I was made welcome, and everyonehelped us out. The first three months is a big learning curve and it’s amatter of getting into a routine. My mate Ben drew the heat—awayfrom me. The firies wet his shirts and put them in the freezer.’

Marcus Maffey drove up to Ingham straight after graduation.

It was raining. I met the guys at the station. I found accommo-dation and settled in and began my station induction. It’s a realfriendly station and in my first week we had a lunchtime barbecuewith the ambos. On Friday afternoons we often gather for drinksand it’s quite sociable.

In Innisfail, John Ryan marched in and within a month had seensome action—a small grass fire and a motor vehicle accident.

It was a two-vehicle MVA and it was the first real job I had, andit was good that it all worked out well. Everyone got out okayand everyone worked promptly and quickly and effectively . . .It was a good feeling to have an MVA where nobody died andeverything went well and you felt like a bit of a hero at the endof it.

Looking back

After graduating and spending almost five months on the job therecruits were asked what they thought of their course and, if they couldchange any part of it, what would it be. Among a wide range ofresponses given by the men, Luke Smith would like to have seen ‘morehot fire training and less EEO [equal employment opportunity] stuff ’on the course itself. After graduation the probationary firefighters do aseries of self-paced examinations called ‘Q-Step’ that will eventuallylead to their becoming senior firefighters. Many of the graduates believethat ‘much of the human resources stuff ’ could be left to Q-Step learn-ing and that more time should be spent on practical aspects and pumpwork.

RECRUIT TRAINING 35


Warren Hosking thinks that the course was a good building block and‘prepared us to be firefighters’. But in firefighting ‘the spectrum is sobroad that the course couldn’t teach everything for the regions’. InCharters Towers one of Warren’s first local courses was how to catchsnakes, which proliferate and invade the town during every wet season.His fellow firie, Scott Dewar, says: ‘We were told the course was just astepping stone and we would get a lot of on-the-job training (OJT) andthe real training would then begin. It was a good overview and gave usa broad range of skills. The stations get into the nitty gritty for what theregions want.’

One of the most difficult things to come to grips with in firefightingis automatic fire alarm control panels. No two are ever the same andeven alarm panels made by the same fire company can be different.Warren says: ‘They should cover alarm panels in the course. Even in asmall town like Charters Towers they are all different and we didn’tknow what to do.’

Arriving as a probationary in Townsville, Kevin Besgrove thought thecourse had been good and had given him a solid grounding. But he soonrealised that it had one major shortcoming. He still recalls the look ofanguish on his station officer’s face. The officer had asked him to dosomething. Kevin laughs and says: ‘We should have been taught how tomake a pot of tea!’

36 RECRUIT TRAINING


ON THE JOB

On most occasions when a big red fire truck goes tearing down theroad, four firefighters will be inside it. The station officer will be inthe left front seat and is the person in charge. The driver is also thepump operator and is called the number two. The crew member whowill hold the fire hose is called the branchman and is also known asthe number one. The remaining firefighter is the number three—thegopher (‘go for this and go for that’) and ‘water boy’. Each time the firiesgo out they know exactly what job they are doing as it is laid down at thebeginning of a shift. Some fire crews do four shifts as a ‘tour’ and havethe same jobs throughout the tour. Other crews like to change their jobsevery shift and a firie could be driver and pump operator one day andbranchman the next. Each job is as important as the next and there is nopecking order in the cab to differentiate between positions. Occasionallya firie might have a slight injury and will be driver and pump operatoruntil recovering and going back on the branch again.

37

CHAPTER 3


The shift times in urban stations are 8.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. on day one(ten hours), the same for day two, and then 6.00 p.m. to 8.00 a.m. onthe third shift and again on the final shift. The shift crew then have fourdays off. (This is a point of contention because the crew have reallyworked eight hours on their first day off.) In regional areas the shiftsworked depend on how the station is manned. This is looked at inChapter 9.

Firefighters in large stations are broken up into four shifts—A through D. Regardless of where you are in the State, the shifts alwaystake post on the same day. For example, in 2000, ‘A’ Shift started onTuesday 1 February and came off on Saturday morning, 5 February.Across the State every A Shift started on that Tuesday. The systemmakes contacting the firefighters at work easier and everyone knows atleast a year in advance what days they are rostered on duty. Some shiftshave been together for several years. Russell Mayne works at Noosastation on the Sunshine Coast. He has been on C Shift for about fouryears.

It is your second home. You probably spend more time here thanyou do at home. You get to know the blokes and their problemsand what’s happening in their lives, so it is a pretty close-knit sortof group. Even if you don’t get on with a bloke from the station,when the bells go and you’re out there at a fire, he could be yourworst enemy but now he’s your best mate.

Working on shift

One of the first matters that has to be confronted by a firefighter onjoining a station is the adjustment to working on shift. John Watson ofBundaberg didn’t see it as a problem: ‘I saw shift work as being good;my wife thought it was fantastic. I had contact time around the houseand more time to do “home” things.’ It has to be said, however, that notall wives enjoy their partners being away from home at night. And Johnadmits: ‘The romance of the job does drift away . . . sleeping in colddormitories, and being hosed down (sometimes deliberately) at a housefire at 3 a.m.’

38 ON THE JOB


Many long-time firefighters prefer shift work although, as BarrySalway concedes, ‘it eats into your private life and there are nights whenyou would like to be home with your wife and children but you’re not,you’re on shift’. But he has done shift work for 27 years and it is one ofthe things that he enjoys. Barry says that he and his wife Berys have ‘hada good relationship the whole time’. Greg Scarlett thinks shift workdoes affect the family, because of the kids playing sport on weekends.He adds: ‘So you miss that and it affects you more than things socially.’Jack Wensley makes the observation that even though it affects familylife, ‘it is not detrimental and has to be worked around and adjusted toby the whole family’. Thankfully, the times when Pat Scanlan and PatHopper were junior firies on shift have gone, when days on duty couldnot be switched to accommodate personal events. Jack Wensley recallsone old chief fire officer who would not let a firefighter attend his owndaughter’s wedding because of a shift clash! And Ray Moore remem-bers the old shift system which left people ‘buggered’:

In 1964 it was 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Monday; 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdaythrough to Thursday. Then 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Friday until Sundaymorning. Then it all started again on Tuesday. It rotated like that,and every seventh or eighth week we got one shift off a week tobring us back to a 40-hour week. That was for the firies. The offi-cers worked 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, then 6 p.m. to8 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday. They would then have two daysoff and start again on Sunday. That was called an eight-hour shift.It was awful. I didn’t like going home at 11 p.m. and starting againat 7 the next morning. It was a bit ugly.

Kathy Eustace, who has been married to her Ray for 32 years, says theimpact was worse in ‘the old days and it was bad’. She remembers whenRay was a station officer unable to get off shift and he turned up at achristening for one of their children. ‘He turned up from a grass fire . . .he was black, loaded with smoke and stank.’ The friends made on shiftnaturally become close acquaintances, but most firies say they have awide circle of friends because of the people they meet in their job andthe ability to do things on their days off. It is harder for sporting con-tacts, because on shift a firefighter will only get two weekends out of

ON THE JOB 39


eight free. Graham Cooke thinks the positives outweigh the negativeswith shift work because he has had a lot of good time with his kids.Russell Mayne is philosophical and applies Murphy’s Law to his shifttimes: ‘You can bet that, if there’s something on, you’ll be working.’

The attitude of officers to firies in the old days led to some seriouspranks and hi-jinks to alleviate the oppressive working conditions andthe strict discipline that was enforced then. Ray Eustace recalls an oc-casion when an older firie, Henry Ellis, was on duty in the watch room,where he had the job of answering telephone calls. Another firie, JohnBarnes, was up to no good:

John caught two birds and chucked them into the comms roomwith Henry, who was reading the paper. The pigeons flewaround and all the shutters on the telephone console fell downand the bells went off—you had to have the shutters up to turnoff the bells. Here were three bells ringing away, Henry trying toshut the bells off, and pigeons flapping around.

There were lots of practical jokes. Like catching people whoalways fly out of bed like a rocket—the lads would fill their bootswith water and then ring the bells.

On other occasions the men would fill someone’s boots with paperand then fall around laughing as they watched their mate trying to gethis boots on. As Ray admits: ‘You didn’t take sick leave because youdidn’t want to miss out on what was happening!’

Answering a call

The job of a firefighter on shift is a busy one. The belief that firefight-ers sit around all day in red braces, playing cards and waiting for alarmsto go off, is a myth. From the time they come on shift until they knockoff they’re involved in a variety of jobs, as later chapters show.

When they turn out to a fire, having been prompted by a 000 callwhich has been tasked through Firecom, or responding to an automaticalarm, each individual has a specific job to do. As the truck races to thescene the crew will be talking about where they think the fire exactly is

40 ON THE JOB


and what specific points of interest should be known. In case the driverisn’t familiar with the best way to get to the location (and that would bevery rare), the number three has a set of ‘which way’ cards that haveevery major building and road listed and shows the route from thestation to a particular spot. In twelve months of riding trucks, I didn’tsee the ‘which way’ cards used as there was always enough local knowl-edge among the crew to get them to the scene quickly. Men like SeniorFirefighter Vince Hinder have worked out of one of two stations inToowoomba all their life. Vince says: ‘I know the place like the back ofmy hand—like a fireman should.’

If the fire call has been vague, or the crew are having difficulty locat-ing a fire, Dick Gledhill says, ‘a good comms officer will lead the truckin over the radio’. If it is an obscure street, or a case of misinformation(usually not deliberate) from the public, then the Firecom operator willconfirm events as the crew travel to the call.

Vince Hinder told me that the important things when he got to a firewere the station officer doing a quick recce (reconnaissance) and gettinga feel for the size of the fire and where any occupants were. While hewas doing that the firefighters were checking on water availability, as thetrucks normally only carry about 1500 litres of water when they arrive.The pump operator was getting his pump ready and establishing a BAcontrol if required for the number one and number three who wouldgo into the dwelling as a team.

Russell Mayne says of firefighters:

Common sense is a huge factor—absolutely huge. Being able tothink for yourself . . . because an officer at an incident has gotenough work on his plate [and can’t be] running around makingsure that you’re doing your job. Even though he’s got a crew andthey know what they are doing—if he can get on with his job itmakes it so much easier.

Initially, saving life comes first, so if a bystander says there is someoneinside the burning structure, the crew will attend to that first. Thestation officer has a totally different job from the firies and what theyhave to do. One of the biggest things on everybody’s mind is gettingwater. That is a huge priority. While that is happening, the driver (pump

ON THE JOB 41


operator) is going up and down the street looking for water—lookingfor those black and white signs that say HP (hydrant, footpath) or HR(hydrant, road). When the crew get the water on they have a guaranteedsupply to attack the fire with. The fire trucks have high pressure hoseson reels and the truck’s own water supply will provide a good firefight-ing capability for about six minutes on one hose.

The one thing certain about a firefighter’s job is the uncertainty.Although it is often cited as a major attraction of the job, Neil Smith ofCaloundra station reckons that the hardest part about being a firie isthat ‘when you’re on shift, the bells go and you have no idea of whatyou’ve got—once you’ve gone out through the doors, with lights andsirens on, you have absolutely no idea’. Many firies admit to getting anadrenalin rush, ‘but once you have got over the excitement, you tendto live with the adrenalin—then it becomes a worry of what you haveactually got and how you are going to do it when you get there’.1

Jack Wensley of Toowoomba agrees: ‘You can plan a bit when you getthe call, but it isn’t really until you get there that you can [decide the]attack.’

Greg Scarlett, says of his position as a senior firefighter:

I think [the hardest part of the job is] staying professional and notgoofing up and getting someone killed—which is easy, given someof the things we have to do. If you went out to a traffic accidentand you did something the wrong way and someone got killed, oryou went to a fire and made a wrong decision and one of yourmates got killed, I think that’s the scariest part—how you canaffect others. I think it’s about letting someone down. Whenyou’re in a small team and one person made a mistake it would bepretty hard to live with. It’s about staying on the ball, handling thepressure. When you knock off and go home you can feel thepressure—it’s definitely there.

Senior firefighters

Senior firefighters have taken on a much larger role on the station housefloor in the last few years. Neil Smith explains:

42 ON THE JOB


A senior firefighter usually has the run of the station, and what Imean by that is he will be running around with his crew doingwhatever he has to do—maintaining his truck and maintaining hisstation. He is still responsible to the station officer.

At the same time, most stations have specific duties for senior fire-fighters, who now take more of a ‘leading hand’ role in a fire crew. Theyconduct a lot of the training and even take the firies out and do certaininspections, while the officer gets on with the paperwork (of whichthere is no shortage). Outside the Brisbane area, if the crew are out onan inspection with the senior firefighter and the bells go, the officer willjust jump in the station ute and join them at the fire ground. Neil Smithcompares the two positions: ‘The station officer . . . is more of amanager and the senior firefighter more of a leading hand.’ That sort ofdivision is a matter of being flexible under the Enterprise PartnershipAgreement arrangements.

Station officers

Barry Salway is a senior firefighter who often acts as a station officer ashe has all the qualifications to be an incident commander. Wheninterviewed, he was acting station officer at Nambour because theincumbent, Gary Burnett, was doing area support duties at Maroochy-dore. Barry thinks that the hardest part of a station officer’s job is theresponsibility.

I notice the difference coming ‘off the floor’ where you are one ofthe team and do whatever has got to be done. Once you move upfrom firefighter to acting station officer there is a lot more responsi-bility. You are the guy that calls the shots, and if things go wrongthe buck stops with you. The safety of the crew is first up and youhave to make sure that they’re not going to get injured. They aremy primary responsibility and my bum is on the line if somethinghappens to them. Then comes the public at large and thenproperty after that.

ON THE JOB 43


The station officers have an acronym for their responsibility at afire—RECEO. It stands for responsibility to the public (rescue), ex-posure, containment, extinguishment, and then the fire scene overall.But the safety of the firies is important because if the crew are unable todo their job because they have been injured, or unable to move becauseit is unsafe, they are no use to anyone.

Pat Hopper has been a station officer for fifteen years and his time istaken up organising the shift, completing stacks of computer work,overseeing training of the crew, overseeing tasks like building inspec-tions, running exercises and providing budget input. The training Patmentions is a requirement for all firefighters: to complete at least40 hours a month of core skill training. This is in all aspects of their jobfrom BA to RAR, to pump and hose drills, vertical rescue techniques,first aid, resuscitation and so on. Hopper’s close mate Pat Scanlan, whohas done almost the same amount of service as a station officer, reckonsthat the hardest part of the job is keeping the shift happy and keepingthem together. ‘It depends on the guys you have, and some need moreattention than others.’ They are not the only ones. At an incident,Scanlan says, an important task, after the crew have tackled the job, ‘is totry to comfort the people whose building’s on fire’. But making theright technical decisions is vital, of course: the officer in charge mustdeploy the firies in the right positions and and aim to ensure their safetyat all times. ‘Fight the fire at close range, do it quickly and safely, andsave as much property as possible,’ Scanlan says.

Trevor Kidd has been a station officer in Rockhampton for about24 years. He enjoys the challenge of solving a problem. ‘There are lots offacets to the task, and I like working with the crew and being in charge.’Important things are: ‘Professionalism, the well-being of the crew, recog-nising that we have a job to do, and not getting complacent.’ Trevorexplains why it is important for a station officer to listen to his fire crew:

You have to be approachable. The team must have input and I takea team approach to the task. I use the experience of our teambecause some men have vast experience in certain areas. Forexample, some have a lot of chemical incident experience. We dovertical rescue, fires, RAR; we do chemical incidents, trenchrescue, USAR [urban search and rescue], plus senior first aid,

44 ON THE JOB


advanced CPR [closed pulmonary resuscitation] etc. So we do awide range of tasks and need a lot of skills and no one person is topin all fields. Therefore the station officer becomes the coordinator,matching people to tasks.

Kevin Neilsen has worked for more than two decades on shift andknows that the important thing, after the adrenalin rush of a callout haspassed, is to get his thoughts together quickly. He wants to know:‘Where is it, how do we get there the quickest way? Is the crew tunedin? Where is the hydrant?’ He adds that his head is ‘really swimming’ ashe spends the first minute or so at the fire ground just gathering infor-mation. He believes that the station officer ‘is really an incidentcommander or controller’. Given the amount of experience in a firecrew, that is understandable. Everyone knows what their job is and getson and does it while the station officer makes his assessment of the situ-ation. He knows the crew can handle the initial setting up andpreparation. Teamwork is vital because it saves time and energy.

Kevin says that he has always got feedback from the team andinvolved them in a problem. He would ask for opinions—there couldeasily be 50 years of experience in a crew. He adds: ‘With a senior crewI won’t say too much at all. I will expect certain things to happen.Often I won’t have to tell them anything.’

Some station officers don’t get to spend much time with the onecrew, especially in the far-flung corners of the State where there are lessofficers to go around. Jack Wensley works out of Toowoomba on theDarling Downs but spends much of his time relieving senior officers indifferent areas like Roma, Charleville and as far out as Goondiwindi. In2000 he spent nine months on relieving duties. He says: ‘It createshavoc with my own long-term planning as a station officer and as aperson. You can plan a bit when you get the call, but it’s not really untilyou get there that you can attack the job.’

Richard Gorey has been a station officer only a relatively short timecompared to some of his colleagues and he finds the responsibility themain element of the job.

Now that I’m an officer I don’t have the luxury of waiting forsomebody else to make a decision. As a fireman I did have that

ON THE JOB 45


luxury, and I would just do my job. But now, as an officer, I haveto make decisions for other people and pertaining to other people.

Support roles

In each of the eight regions in the QFRS there are several positionsallocated to providing support to the regional areas to ensure that fire-fighting personnel are trained in the latest techniques of their corebusiness and also for personal development purposes. Certain of thepositions are concerned with supervising auxiliary training. All thesepeople are known as support officers, and they have usually been veryexperienced station officers.

Kevin Neilsen, for example, has served almost 28 years as a shiftcommander or station officer, and came into the firefighting businessafter a stint in the RAAF and a tour of duty in South Viet Nam. He seeshis job as mainly the coordination of training, supporting the area direc-tor, ‘being a gopher’, and special projects work. He also looks afterrecruits going through Q-Step, and acts as mentor or guide to the morejunior officers if and when they seek his support. Kevin says: ‘As asupport officer I spend a fair bit of my time being a help to firies—utilising my experience, which is valued.’ He also makes sure that fire-fighters are not disadvantaged in obtaining their qualifications for paylevels that impact directly on superannuation payments on retirement.

Neil Smith works at Caloundra station in a field called CommunitySafety. It’s a job that requires special qualifications apart from being anexperienced firefighter and station officer. He had to complete a four-week course and says: ‘I have just this week finished the practical side ofit and I am now a fully fledged Level 3 Community Safety Officer.It was bloody good to get through, actually.’ Part of the job entails devi-sing a regional service delivery plan for every station in the whole of theNorth Coast Region—some 43 stations in all. The plan covers locationof existing stations, what service delivery is required, how the area hasgrown, where the QFRS might need to put new stations, and provisionof the all-important operational communications.

Neil came into this line of work because he wanted a break from shiftwork. He says:

46 ON THE JOB


Your kids start to get a bit older and you realise that you’re startingto miss growing up with them. You’re missing the weekends withthem; you’re missing the nights. It was at about the fifteen-yearmark that I realised I was neglecting my family and my son.I decided I had had enough of pulling bloody dead bodies out ofcars and decided I would get some more skills. I talked my bossReg Christiansen into sending me away on some computercourses. Now I’ve got some extra skills I can bring to the job . . .And being a builder I’m adept at reading plans and so on.

His background is particularly apt. The other part of Neil’s jobinvolves poring over building plans to ensure that all aspects of firesafety are incorporated in buildings and structures in accordance withregulations and Australian codes of practice.

Area directors; strategic development units

The number of areas a region has varies. Some regions have small buthighly populated areas; in other regions the area directors have hugetracts of Queensland to look after. John Watson is an area director inBundaberg. He spends much of his time keeping tabs on what ishappening in his area and talking with his fellow area directors. He visitsall the stations in his area regularly so they can highlight problems orseek assistance with particular issues. He pays close attention to his aux-iliary stations at Childers, Gin Gin, Bargara and Wallaville. John says ofhis job: ‘I spend my time forward planning, forecasting, planningservice delivery, constantly reassessing regional and area planning, andkeeping the firefighters happy.’

Another director of a large area is Graham Cooke at Dalby. ‘It’s a veryactive job,’ he says. I have a line of responsibility to the crews and properservice delivery. It’s all about minimising loss of life and property.’Dalby is a fully auxiliary area and includes towns as far apart as Dalbyitself, Cecil Plains, Tara, Jandowae, Chinchilla, Miles and Meendarra. Itis no less than four hours’ drive from one end of the area to the otherand visits are required for liaison, training and administration. Formajor incidents it creates enormous challenges, as senior officer support

ON THE JOB 47


is some considerable time away. In the case of a major incidentGraham’s role is to ensure that the crews have the necessary resources.‘Usually I am somewhere else and I will ring them and make sure theyhave what they want. I don’t automatically take over and I rarelyrespond “with lights and sirens”. I also have to do fire investigation atsome fires.’ Graham reports to Assistant Commissioner Daryll Pepper,who has six areas within his region: Toowoomba, Dalby, Warwick,Goondiwindi, Roma and Charleville.

The ‘tyranny of distance’ is worst in the rural areas, of course, asMaryborough Area Director Ray Eustace explains: ‘The hardest part ofmy job is time management. It’s about long hours. There’s nothingreally tough—just meeting challenges and creating priorities. There arealways personnel dramas and the balancing of resources.’ Ray spendsmuch of his time (apart from planning and administration) in maintain-ing morale, visiting all his stations and attending to the requirementsof some 60 permanent and 50 auxiliary firefighters in his area.

Senior officers are responsible for forward planning and strategicdevelopment at the regional level. Peter Beauchamp is the manager forstrategic development in Cairns, which is the centre for Far NorthernRegion. There are almost 400 QFRS personnel to look after and apopulation of almost a quarter of a million, not counting the enormousinflux of tourists into Cairns every year. Peter describes his work inthis way:

There are eight of us and we sort out the provision of fire servicesto the public. It’s an evolving job and mostly about strategic servicedelivery, improving our jobs and the way we do business. It’s nothard but challenging. Trying to impart a realistic objective to thesenior management of the QFRS as to where we should be going,and being proactive rather than reactive. Firefighting is reactive butwe need to be proactive in our planning. It’s an extreme challenge.

Firecom

The whole business of turning out to a fire call starts with the com-munications centres in the regions. They are known as ‘Firecom’, for

48 ON THE JOB


fire communications. The communications centre for the Brisbane areais located in the inner city suburb of Spring Hill. I sat in one night onshift with console communications operator Dean Baird. Dean is anex-Army communicator who wants to be a firefighter one day but at themoment is concentrating on tertiary studies to give him an edge whenhe applies for firefighter training. His supervisor was Neil Beasy and hisshift co-worker was Sean Brophy.

Co-located with the communications for the Queensland Ambu-lance Service (QAS), the Emergency Services communications centreconsists of a very large room with two-thirds of the space dedicated tothe QAS. Operators sit at curved consoles—in chairs reminiscent of thetype used by the commander of a warship—facing a battery of screensand monitors. The communication system is high-tech indeed andtouch screens ensure rapid response to calls and quick allocation oftasks. In the QFRS section there are several desks. By day, fire calloperators man two consoles and a third console is dedicated to an alarmmonitor.

Each time a call is made to 000 for the QFRS, there is a pre-conditioned response depending on what information has been passedto the control centre. Standard procedures are in place for allocating thestation and number of units to the incident. The staff in the watch roomare specifically trained to ensure that the correct number of appliances,or ‘pumps’, are activated for a specific type of incident. For example, foran automatic fire alarm it will be two pumps, and for people trappedupside down in a car it will be three pumps. A ‘pump’ in the firies’vernacular is a truck capable of pumping water.

On night shift, Dean Baird and Sean Brophy work in tandem. Theyback each other up when one needs a comfort break; both work themonitors when things get busy.

During the day, from Monday to Friday, there is an alarm attendantwhose primary duty is to maintain the database of some 4000 automaticalarms in the Brisbane Firecom area, as there is constant updating andmaintenance by the many fire companies and fire fighting enterprises.When a fire company wants to work on an alarm it rings up Firecomand books the alarm ‘off line’. The alarm is then isolated from thesystem so that it will not be activated accidentally during testing.

The area the Spring Hill Firecom is responsible for is huge. It

ON THE JOB 49


comprises about 15 200 square kilometres of territory that contains31 permanent stations, 21 auxiliary stations and 108 rural brigades. Allof this takes some coordination. Even the Rural Fire Service is compli-cated, as its brigades are sorted into three categories based on their levelof training and resources.

Dean Baird stops describing his job and the work of the centre to takea 000 call from a woman on a mobile phone. She’s a little distressed butI’m unable to hear what she says. The following responses are Dean’s.

Fire Service, hello. (Woman describes the incident.) Is that a cat stuck up the tree? (Woman says where it is and how high.)What I can do is give you the number for the RSPCA ambulance.(Woman still wants the fire brigade to help her.)Is it your cat, is it? (Woman says whose cat it is.) Is it outside your house? (Woman says she is from out of town andstaying at a friend’s place.)Chances are it’s up there by choice. (Woman says the cat looks scaredand might die.)It’s not often you see a dead cat up a tree. (Woman agrees.)What I will do is, I will give you the [RSPCA] ambulance phonenumber. (Woman goes off to get a pen.)

It is not the job of firefighters to rescue cats from trees unless thereis a risk that the cat in question could start a fire or some other danger-ous event. Animals in peril lie in the domain of the RSPCA, but manypeople see firefighters on television rescuing cats and dogs and auto-matically think of the fire brigade and call 000. Crank and nuisance callsare also part of a day’s work but the monitoring capability that Firecomnow has makes bogus calls a costly business for the perpetrators, as theyare often caught. The Telstra system is described by Dean Baird:

Telstra runs a caller locator index (CLI), and quite often peopledon’t realise that if they ring 000 their details will be given toEmergency Services. This is explained in the front of all telephonebooks. It’s a great thing, because if you’re in a house on fire andyou can’t speak we will still know where you are. So before Ianswered that phone call [about the cat up the tree] I knew that

50 ON THE JOB


the woman was on a mobile phone and that the caller was actuallyfrom Mt Isa.

To gain an idea of just how busy a Firecom can get I visited SouthportFirecom, which looks after Southeastern Region and is the secondlargest Firecom in Queensland. The region extends from the TweedRiver up to Beenleigh, across to Woodridge and then southwest to theborder ranges. In the region there are some 650 QFRS personnel withfifteen permanent stations and seventeen auxiliary stations. JulieBennett is the Firecom supervisor and has three console positions tosupervise. Julie was previously an Australian Federal Police officer andthen a hotel manager. Two consoles are normally operated, but duringthe bushfire season and the Indy Grand Prix race, extra staff manthe third console because it is so busy. In the 2000 bushfire season, theSouthport Firecom had 240 calls on one memorable day. The consoleoperators are women—one is a former trucking company radio dis-patcher and another was a ‘home duties engineer’. Julie also liaises withthe neighbouring NSW Fire Brigade to make sure that they exchangeinformation and assist each other where necessary. In her region thereare four areas: three have permanently manned stations; one area istotally auxiliary. The information flowing in allows Julie to assist areadirectors in allocating resources to major incidents. It is an importantjob but largely unseen by the general public.

The rapidly expanding use of mobile phones has placed an additionalstrain on Firecom across the State, as the public now have quicker accessto communications in times of emergency. However, it is not alwayshelpful when people ring up and say they are ten minutes outsideBeaudesert and there is a fire on the side of the hill, but are unable toexpand on that information. The real skill of good Firecom operatorsthen comes to the fore as they extract all relevant information to deter-mine as closely as possible where the fire has occurred.

Barry Salway has spent 27 years on the pumps and has seen thechanges in response times to accidents and incidents. ‘It allows almostimmediate response if people are on the road. People are getting tophones quicker, but the problem with people using phones along theroads is still getting the exact location. Pinpoint accuracy is difficult andsometimes they have no idea which side of a turnoff they’re at.’

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The problems for the firies at a bad crash site are multiplied whenpeople passing the scene ring the victims’ relatives about the accident.Barry says:

Then they turn up and add to the drama. I have seen it several timeswhen the parents have arrived and just collapsed in a screamingheap on the side of the road. Then you have to get a firefighter orsomeone to look after them. Our role as carers as firefighters thenreally comes to the fore. I think we do that well.

Trevor Kidd, a station officer in Rockhampton, knows the situationonly too well and adds:

I try and console them as much as I can. We see it every day,whether it be at a house fire or at a car accident. The person thatowned the house, or Mum and Dad who have turned up at anMVA where their kid is—they’re the people you have to deal withand you really have to look after them. We believe we do that verywell. I still have to do my job and look after the team, but we alsohave to look after them. If I can’t do it myself, I will certainly makesure that someone else there will look after them.

Frustrations on the job

No occupation is perfect in every way and there are usually things thatfrustrate people. Bob Buckley of Toowoomba admits to being frustratedat times ‘with certain departments like Human Resources in headoffice’. He says: ‘Grievances take forever and don’t seem to get any-where. The QFRS has taken a “soft glove” approach to most things.’ Hethinks it’s like a ‘uniformed system without a uniformed approach [todiscipline]’. Many firies don’t like the way ‘problem firemen’ can takeforever to straighten out. Bob remarks: ‘There are thousands out therewho want to be firies, and it’s the wrong approach.’ Dick Gledhill ofTownsville also has concerns about public servants in the QFRS. Hedislikes the constant changes coming from head office and says: ‘I getfrustrated when we have change for no apparent reason.’ But he adds

52 ON THE JOB


that his greatest frustration comes when he attends a fire and there is nosmoke alarm, or when speeding is the cause of a bad car crash. On thelatter he says: ‘Human nature is hard to control. It’s usually youngblokes getting pissed and showing off. I think the majority of fatal MVAsare young blokes who are pissed.’

Public awareness and safety programs

The QFRS maintains a series of public education initiatives. Theprograms are conducted by the firefighters themselves—often on theirdays off, as in some areas the firies are so busy maintaining their equip-ment and attending to fire calls. In such cases they do the extra workunpaid as there is no provision for overtime for delivering theprograms.

The Fire Education program for children at school in Grade 1 isdesigned to educate youngsters in the dangers of fire and of playing withmatches, and what to do in case of fire. Each station is required toconduct fire education classes with state and private schools. It’s a year-round activity as each shift is allocated a group of primary schools forinitial training and then, usually two weeks later, a follow-up confirma-tion of what has been taught. The firefighters go to the schools as a shiftand take their gear and their truck with them in case they are called to afire or emergency. The education kits they use are professionallyprepared and it has been found that children pass the message along tofamily and friends.

I attended a Fire Ed program in the regional town of Goondi, outsideInnisfail. Six-year-old Lauren Baxter had her hand shooting up withevery question the firefighter asked. After the session I asked her somebasic questions.

Lauren, you seem to know all the answers. Why is that? Yes, becausemy brother told me some of the answers.And how old is your brother? Eight, turning nine in September.So you know what to do when a fire breaks out? Yes.What do you do? If there is smoke, you get down low and go, go, go.

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54 ON THE JOB

Okay, and what is important once you get outside? Go to a meetingplace.Yes, and not go back . . .? Inside.Okay, and what do you do if your clothes are on fire? You stop, dropand roll, and you cover your face with your hands.

The ‘osmosis’ between Lauren Baxter and her elder brother is acommon story, being evident in almost every school across the State.Dick Gledhill in Townsville agrees, adding: ‘It works, they love it andparents tell us about it. Some kids have saved their own families.’

Barry Salway describes the program this way:

What we are trying to do is twofold. In Queensland we are target-ing the Grade 1 kids but we also want them to take the messagehome to Mum and Dad as well. Those young kids have a lot ofinfluence on Mum and Dad, so we are actually reaching two areas.It’s certainly getting the message across to kids and they’re goingto be the next generation with the information that they have tohave a smoke alarm and so on.

The Road Awareness and Accident Prevention program is designed toprevent road accident injuries and fatalities by giving Year 12 students ahard-hitting look at the realities of road accident trauma. The firies visitstudents, aged 15 to 18, in high schools. If available, a smashed car willbe used to show the effects of a collision or rollover. The rescue toolsare demonstrated to show just what is required to extricate casualties.Russell Mayne has been delivering the program for a while and noticesthe impact of the lecture and slide show.

They get in there like typical Grade 12s. We show some videofootage which is pretty graphic and it sort of slows them down abit. They think they know everything but by the end of it theyadmit that we’ve made them aware of just what is going on. Wehad an RAAP program last year at Noosa District High and abouta week later we went a to car prang at Tewantin—a rollover—andthere were four young girls in a Volkswagen. A couple of themwere pretty bad . . . One of the others came up to me afterwards


and she said she was sorry that she had let me down. I asked herhow she worked that out, and she replied that we had done theRAAP program at their school in the last week and that she wasdriving the car. I told her she hadn’t let me down but she had letherself down. It was probably a hard way to learn a lesson, espe-cially as it was her dad’s car and he had just had it restored! Youwin some and you lose some—it’s like anything.

Another firefighter, Neil Smith, has witnessed the same effect.‘I have seen school kids start by being rowdy but at the end every oneof them is so attentive that you wouldn’t think they were the samekids.’ He adds: ‘The teachers are standing there with their mouthsopen, thinking: what’s wrong with these kids? But it’s because thefiries have had the experience. They’re practical blokes and they care—firefighters care.’ Greg Scarlett has received feedback from his ownkids who attended the RAAP program and from their friends. ‘I thinkit’s a good program and has a really good impact on the kids. We havequestionnaires for evaluation, and while some say it’s not graphicenough others disagree.’

Bob Buckley describes another project, the Safehome program, asinvolving ‘an invitation by members of the public for the QFRS toinspect their homes and advise on safety around the house—the scrubor garden, electrical equipment, smoke alarms, switchboards, powerpoints, working areas and so on.’ Bob remarks: ‘We also cover evacu-ation plans—a two or three storey house is often a death trap for manypeople. Fire escapes, ladders etc. may be needed.’

Neil Smith has done quite a few Safehome visits and says:

We call around and do an audit.; we normally spend about45 minutes on it. We’re lucky that we have the instigator of theprogram at Caloundra station—a bloke called Lindsay Elliott. Heactually got it up and running and it’s going Statewide now. Thishas been a North Coast Region initiative and it goes Statewidefrom the first of July [2000].

Several other schemes are run as required including a Fight Fire-Fascination program designed to curtail the incidence of deliberate fires

ON THE JOB 55


started by juveniles. This is an important program as it is estimated thatjuvenile fire-setting is one of the top five causes of structural fires inQueensland and one of the major causes of bush and grass fires.Another scheme being trialled is the Juvenile Arson Offenders program,which aims to stop repeat offences by giving young adults the oppor-tunity to see what the effects and consequences of a fire are at the actualfire ground.

56 ON THE JOB


THE AUXILIARIESI walked into the office of the chief fire officer in 1979 to talk aboutbecoming an auxiliary firefighter. He told me to go and get my medical,which I did, and when I came back and sat down he said that I’d begetting $8.62 an hour. I asked what for, because I didn’t realise we gotpaid for the job. I thought that was better still and I was very happy withthat! I’d thought it was a free service and something you just did—all Iwas interested in was doing something for the community. I already hadanother job.

Station Officer Neil Smith, Caloundra

Throughout Queensland there are about 2000 auxiliary firefighters.The auxiliaries are part-time firefighters who have been trained to ahigh degree of efficiency and capability and can, for all intents andpurposes, do exactly the same sort of job that a permanent fire-fighter does—as long as they have the resources. In many larger rural

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CHAPTER 4


communities there would be no skilled fire prevention and firefightingif it weren’t for auxiliary crews.

There are 32 ‘mixed’ stations across Queensland. In these, permanentsman the station during normal business hours and are supplemented byauxiliaries after hours and on weekends. The permanent firefighters atmixed stations are the core of the fire station and the auxiliaries providethe manpower for back-up crews. The auxiliaries in a mixed stationfluctuate between being available for callout and acting as ‘temporary’firefighters on an almost semi-permanent basis. Many permanent fire-fighters of the last ten years have come from auxiliary ranks.

Station Officer Fred Heiniger of Nambour told me about theauxiliaries at his mixed station.

We have eight at present, but we really should have ten. It’s hardhere for auxiliaries to work with permanents because when theauxiliaries get turned out they’re our back-up (unless it’s a big one).And often they just man the station and that’s it. So it is hard to getthem motivated. But in towns where there are no permanents, theyhave a real job and are good at it because they are ‘first response’.It’s hard on the auxiliaries where there are permanents.

At each of the 155 auxiliary stations where there are no permanentfirefighters, the whole show is run on a part-time basis. The officer incharge is called a captain and he may have two lieutenants and aboutnine firefighters on call (depending on the approved establishment, ormanning level, of the station). Everybody is on call through a system ofpagers and they turn out when the regional Firecom activates theiralarm. The Pico pager system is unique and was pioneered inQueensland specifically to mobilise auxiliary firefighters whencommercial paging networks could not guarantee minimum responsetimes.1 Some stations without pagers are still turned out using thetown’s siren.

The auxiliary firefighters are paid an hourly rate on turnout and fortraining, which is usually held for two hours every week. It is obvious,after talking to the auxiliaries across the State, that they are not in it forthe money. This is just as well because, unbelievably, their earningsfrom this voluntary, dangerous community work are taxed! Army

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Reserve soldiers don’t pay tax on their earnings and yet the chance ofbeing killed while providing life-saving skills seems to be just as great,if not more so, for an auxiliary firefighter. I believe it is an issue thatshould be addressed and quickly at a federal level in order to restoresome equity in what is community work and without which manyQueenslanders would be in peril. As one auxiliary captain comments:‘When one considers the devotion of those who put in, they get little inreturn.’

The weekly training period depends on the local station and what isbest for all the crew. The captain is responsible for the training of thefirefighters and for the standards they maintain. Some permanent fire-fighters would prefer that they had the responsibility for training, but itwould not be feasible in many parts of the State without a large budgetblowout in overtime and travel expenses.

After visiting Caloundra and Nambour, I went to other parts ofQueensland to gain further insight into what the auxiliaries do and howthey go about their business. I began with Coolum Beach.

Coolum Beach, Sunshine Coast

The station is situated at the back of the main business district in thisbeachside town. The captain, 47-year-old Mark Clyne, is a ceramic tilerby trade and is heavily involved in the surf lifesaving movement, organ-ising major events. For this reason he had been called on to helporganise the now defunct World Firefighter Games in 2002 in Brisbane.Mark joined the fire brigade fifteen years ago. In those days the town’ssiren would go off to call out the firies (there were no pagers then). Hedecided that he might as well join the brigade because he was beingwoken up anyhow!

There have been huge changes for auxiliaries since their amalga-mation into the QFRS. At Coolum the training is standard and isarranged so that Mark’s crews can do it in acceptable chunks of theirspare time. The equipment is better than before—both the big red trucks(they have an Isuzu composite pumper) and the personal protectiveclothing, which is the same as permanent fire crews wear. On turnoutMark acts as a station officer would at a fire, by doing a recce, assessing

THE AUXILIARIES 59


and allocating resources and managing the fire ground. His lieutenantsusually look after the pump and BA sets, but act in his stead if he isunable to turn out.

If an auxiliary firefighter is at work and his pager carries a messagethat he has a fire call, he usually drops what he’s doing and heads off tothe station. This can create a dilemma for auxiliaries if they are not self-employed and have difficulty getting time off. But across the State Ifound very few organisations that do not release their auxiliary fire-fighters from work. To be eligible to be an auxiliary firefighter you mustlive within five minutes of your station. That takes care of things atnight, but if you work away from Coolum during the day it can be aproblem. Mark Clyne’s constant battle, like many of his peers, is to havea crew available for daytime turnout at the station. Sometimes hisnumbers have dropped to as low as one officer and two firefighters toman a pump. Another problem for some of the fire crew is that duringthe bushfire season taking time off from employment can hurt finan-cially. In the previous season Mark didn’t lay a tile for about eight weeks,as his station had a record number of fire calls in October/Novemberand turned out almost every day. There were 75 fires in eight weeks andmost of them had been deliberately lit. Juveniles were thought respon-sible and devices were discovered that had started the fires.2

The firefighters at Coolum station come from a variety of back-grounds. Let’s take a few at random. Chad McAllister, 25, is a recentpolice graduate from Oxley. He has been an auxiliary for twelve monthsand is a ‘day work’ member. Tamara Sandford, 24, transferred fromStanthorpe. She had been an auxiliary there for two years and is fullyqualified, having completed her BA, Hazmat, RAR, first aid, advancedresuscitation and incident management courses. Tim McDermott, 27, isa greenkeeper at the Headland golf course in Buderim. He has been anauxiliary for a year and is ‘interested in serving the community’. He isalso a member of the SES and hopes ‘maybe one day to go full-time’.Jason Hanrahan, 32, an optical mechanic and spectacle maker by trade,has been an auxiliary for over three years. He works at Mooloolaba,which is fifteen minutes away by car and so he is a night-time turnoutmember most of the week. During last year’s bushfire season Jason was‘slowly getting knackered’ spending eight hours at work and then eighthours at night fighting grassfires in the State forest area around Noosa

60 THE AUXILIARIES


and north of Coolum. Darren Tinker, 32, has been in seven years, is oneof the lieutenants, lives in Coolum and is a baker and pastrycook. He isusually up at 11.00 p.m. to start his work and tends to be a guaranteedmember for a day turnout. Darren joined from a background of familyservice in the local community.

The Coolum area of operations (there are no specific boundaries, asresponse times are the criteria) is not all that large but there are pocketsof scrub everywhere that, according to Mark, ‘are poorly maintainedand managed’. They also have two major arterials, one of which is ahigh-speed road, cane farms dot the area, and there is a large residentialprecinct with a foreshore of national park.

The greatest challenge in the Coolum district is accessibility. Marksays: ‘We have a lot of inaccessible areas like swamp, so we wait for thefire to come out and we spend a lot of effort trying to reduce the fireload.’ The grass and bush fires are time consuming—the crews canspend days chasing a grassfire if the winds are up. As Mark observes:‘You could win a prize at the Show with your blisters.’

Coolum averages around 200 calls per annum; about 40 per cent areautomatic fire alarm calls, usually from the nursing homes and hotels.The salt corrosion associated with the prevailing sea breeze adds to thenumber of automatic alarm calls.

If a major fire erupted, Mark Clyne would hand over to the nearestpermanent station officer or incident commander for the area.

For people wanting to become a firefighter there is a 40-hour recruitcourse and a BA course (another 40 hours) as the absolute minimum.However, as the budget was strained badly in late 2000 as a result ofheavy bushfires, there have been financial constraints on recruitsattending courses or members upgrading their skills. Understandably,Mark was a bit peeved, saying: ‘I will have blokes on the backburner forthe next six months before they can attend a course.’

Inexplicably, there is no extra funding to cater for a bad bushfireseason, but if the captain of a station found he had no money anddesperately needed new crew he would go to his area director, becausethe provision of a fire service is a top priority. Somehow people wouldbe found or sent out of the area to train.

Mark sees his greatest challenge as ‘trying to keep local traininginteresting and exciting and not in a rut’. The station runs a skills

THE AUXILIARIES 61


maintenance program, and they also get outside to do RAR on dumpedcars, reconnaissance on new buildings in town, and wet drills in a creekwith the pump. Mark delegates the training as much as he can to hislieutenants, who are qualified workplace trainers (another course avail-able to firefighters).

The local community supports the firefighters well, although manypeople are blissfully unaware that they are not permanents. They see thebig red truck zooming along the road and assume that that’s all thesecommunity-minded individuals do all day. Mark recalls a big grassfirewhen they were short-handed:

It was a deliberately lit fire, but we had lots of community help.The hoses were all joined up to reach the head of the fire and therewere about 150 people moving the hose . . . The Energex chopperdumped water from the lake at the Hyatt hotel, picking up about360 litres in a scoop bag. The people from the community were onsacks and using branches as beaters . . . It was great.

The Coolum station also has its share of MVAs and most of the crewhave attended accidents requiring extrication. They can be out of thestation in five to six minutes from the time their pagers are activated.

The area is growing quickly and Captain Clyne believes that withinfive years the Coolum station will probably have to go mixed or evenhave permanent staff on shift.

Dalby

In the Southwestern Region, Area Director Graham Cooke has sevenstations to look after. He has a significant challenge in his rural area. Ashe puts it: ‘The country area is not as stable now because of the state ofthe rural economy and the population drift to the eastern seaboard. Thechallenge is getting people to enlist.’ But women are coming to the foreand about 60 per cent of his stations have female firefighters, usuallymaking up about a fifth of the crewmembers. Graham had 92 auxiliarieson the books in December 2000, which matched his authorised estab-lishment, but the numbers fluctuate.

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Auxiliaries are supposed to live within five minutes of the station but,as in most auxiliary stations, a balance needs to be struck—it’s essentialthat stations have people for day turnout. This is a problem everywherein Queensland.

Toowoomba is the main city in the region and the locals are justlyproud of their auxiliaries, who have been very successful at regionalauxiliary championships. The championship events test the crews indrills on pumps, ladder drills, wet drills and safety. The district’schampion station, Clifton, often has permanent firies like Bob Buckleyattend training sessions on their days off to assist the auxiliary team toprepare for such meets.

Killarney

To the south of Toowoomba, near the border with New South Wales, isthe small rural community of Killarney, famous for its meat industrywhich supplies the Brisbane region. The major fire risks are two saw-mills, an abattoir, potato and onion growers and packers, the KillarneyCo-op store, the Killarney hospital and a nursing home. There’s also ahotel and about 200 houses.

Robert Schulze, a plumber, is the Killarney captain. He joined in1965, ‘when we got the water supply through town and the WarwickFire Brigade Board decided they would start a brigade in Killarney’. Hewas only sixteen and had to be eighteen to join the crew, but his fatherhad a word with the chief officer during the recruiting. As it turned out,father and son were the first people to show interest, and in the endRobert was taken in under age because they were short of the sixrequired to start the brigade. So began a 40-year association for Robert,whose father was captain before him. The Killarney station now hasthree officers and eight firefighters, with a good mix of youth andexperience—the three officers have 100 years’ service between them.

The incidence of fires fell in 2000, but MVAs increased. The brigadeturned out to eight car accidents, one vehicle fire, six AFAs, twostructural fires, a chimney fire in a house, two special service calls, onefalse alarm (malicious) and six grassfires. They also had to deal with aconcrete truck that had broken down with three metres of cement

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slurry stuck in the back. Rob remarks: ‘We hosed it out.’ The grassfiresare mainly looked after by the RFS brigade who share the area allocatedfor the QFRS and have an adjoining shed on the property. Rob says: ‘Iflife or property are at risk we get turned out straight away and the Ruralsback us up. But for grassfires they go first response and we back up.’

While the number of turnouts might seem small, they are virtually all‘real’ calls. The town is a long way from Toowoomba and without theseauxiliaries things would be pretty serious if a house caught on fire, espe-cially at night and in the fog that occurs frequently in the high country.Admittedly the number of house fires has fallen since a tornado in 1969tore the town apart, including the old fire station building—whosetruck ended up across the road in a corn paddock. Some 32 houses weredestroyed and their replacements, with new wiring, have seemed to beless prone to fire. Rob adds: ‘And public safety awareness has reducedthe chances of a fire. Fire Ed has helped as well.’ In the past there werequite a few pub fires, which Rob thinks might have been related to poorperformance on the balance sheet rather than some other cause of fire.

But life in the country was tough for these firies who existed onhand-me-downs and less than adequate equipment for decades until theQFRS came into being. Before they acquired a pump vehicle thebrigade had to tow their trailer pump behind a private car. One recol-lection of past equipment has a bit of humour to it. Killarney’s firstappliance was a short-wheelbase Landrover—a 1958 model. It carried40 gallons (180 litres) of water and to say that it was underpoweredwould be to praise it! Rob explains:

We turned out to a fire at the Emu Vale hotel about fifteen kilo-metres away, and it’s hilly on the road out there. We were doing70 downhill but only 30 uphill. Eventually we got there and thepub was almost gone, but we thought we’d better do something.We ran a line down to the creek but we were one length of hose tooshort! We just had to let the place burn. That Landrover only hadtwo seats and everyone else turned out in their own cars.

The Killarney brigade now have a state-of-the-art vehicle and theirequipment is good. They still have hand-operated RAR kit but that willbe upgraded soon, given their proximity to a major arterial and, as Rob

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Schulze notes, an area growing with tourism. ‘Since a new food distri-bution centre was built nearby and eco-tourism has grown—bothrequiring our attendance at MVAs—the priorities have changed.’

The station is a simple and utilitarian brick building with a spandeckroof, an open floor plan, and shower room and toilet. There is a hosearea, a turnout gear area and a rudimentary office. Killarney has alwayshad 4WD trucks, needed for wet, boggy roads. New blood in thebrigade has generated fresh interest in competing and they came secondin the State in recent championships.

The commitment needed to be a member of the Killarney brigade islaid out as soon as someone applies to join the crew. Captain RobSchulze runs a weekend roster for turnouts and members know a yearin advance what their obligations are. He explains:

We always roster three people on but we always get more that turnup. It is one weekend a month, one on, two off, and then one on,three off, and so on. If they accept that then it is a good indicator.They just have to be in town, and with pagers it is a piece of cake.They must watch their response time. And they can get a replace-ment if they have to go out of town for an hour.

When Rob is out on his job as a plumber and his pager goes off, thepeople understand if he has to go. ‘They appreciate the problem andeveryone knows, if they see me take off, that something is up.’ Theydon’t always sound the siren in Killarney, as many locals don’t like thewhine of it. However, Rob says:

We’re in two minds about the siren going off because six of thecrew work at the abattoir two kilometres out of town. If the sirengoes, then the locals know the members are coming and give themright of way on the road into town. I prefer the pagers, but therecan be times when the siren is handy.

In a small country town there is a good chance that, if a local isinvolved in a fatal MVA, they will be known to most or all of the firecrew, and that makes it doubly tough. The saddest incident forthe Killarney brigade, though, was a farm accident. The victim was the

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niece of one of the officers. She had been playing around in a silo andhad got sucked down and suffocated in the grain.

The demands of the job are fairly heavy. Rob remarks: ‘It impacts onyour family and private life, but it’s all about community service. Thesatisfaction you get from the job is worth it. It becomes part of your lifeand you get more out of it than you put in. The camaraderie is terrificand the brigade is like a second family.’ On training nights it is evidentthat the crew enjoy what they are doing, even when it is freezing coldand Rob has them out doing wet drills. He says: ‘Come 9.00 p.m. we sitaround and play darts, have a beer, and nobody rushes off.’

One requirement on joining the QFRS as a firefighter, apart fromhaving a certificate in first aid and resuscitation, is to have a C Class orheavy vehicle driving licence, so as to be able to drive the fire pump.There is no training facility in Killarney and the firies have to travel intoWarwick or Toowoomba to attend training and be tested, which isexpensive. Rob says: ‘Sometimes the cost can be as much as $600, andthere is no help from the QFRS in that regard. It’s a big hit in the wallet,seeing that the blokes have no other requirement for it.’

The Killarney brigade is involved in Fire Ed and other programs, butthere’s another initiative in country areas, called ‘Giddy Goanna’. It’s afarm safety awareness program designed for rural youngsters. Robattended a session with his crew just before I interviewed him for thisbook.

That was a hectic day! Five or six schools, and the Grade 3s and 5slike to get involved—the older ones try to be aloof. There werepolice, ambos, electricians and farmers, plus silos and equipmentlike tractors, farm machinery, hand tools and so on. Each grouphad twenty minutes to get their message across; it was run on abullring system using the pumper siren. It was a full-on day, withabout 220 kids.

Mt Morgan

Southwest of Rockhampton is the mining town of Mt Morgan, a smallcountry town with a population of about 3000 and situated at the top of

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a mountain range. It is a very old settlement going back to the late nine-teenth century when gold was the incentive to live in this hot, aridlandscape. Consequently the buildings are mostly old, wooden andready to burn. When they do go up they go very quickly, and saving awooden cottage in Mt Morgan is a rarity, especially if it has had five orsix minutes’ start on the firies.

The fire station itself is a very old building that was used in the dayswhen it belonged to a Fire Brigade Board. The former chief officer’sresidence upstairs has now been turned into an instructional area, butthe old red fire pole for rapid descent is still there—though not in use.I visited the auxiliaries in the company of Acting Area Director LaurieThornton on a Monday night, which is their training night. They werein high spirits because the night before they had saved an old miner’scottage in James Street. I was debriefed by Arthur Read, the 57-year-oldcaptain of the brigade who has been in it since 1968, on what had beenan impressive effort. A fire had started in the ceiling of the cottage whenan offset chimney flue heated the battens in the roof. The ceiling wasbasic, being only tongue and groove boards with masonite on battens.Between it and the corrugated iron roof there was very little air space.So the fire, which had started sometime during the day, took a long timeto combust fully and it wasn’t until it slowly moved into a hip area ofthe roof that it found more oxygen and took off. When it did, it wasfortunate that a neighbour saw smoke pouring out of the roof.

Firecom in Rockhampton activated the 000 call at 7.07 p.m. Thestation crew advised that they had turned out at 7.09 and they gave aCode 2 at 7.11 that they were in location and that smoke was visible.A second unit arrived from the station at 7.13. By 7.24 they reportedthat all persons had been accounted for and by 7.42 the fire was out andthe site under control. The blaze had been contained within an areaabout 3 metres by 10 metres in the roof and all that was needed afterthe fire was extinguished was a tarpaulin to keep out the elements.A fire watch was maintained throughout the freezing night by severalof the crew. At daybreak a fire investigation officer arrived and tookover the scene. In anyone’s terms it was a good save, but especially sogiven the nature of the fire and the construction of the dwelling.

The local police sergeant had dropped by during the training sessionand I commented on the fast reaction of the Mt Morgan crew on

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turnout, which is consistently one of the best in Queensland stations ofany type. He said: ‘When I hear the siren go, I sort of look the other way.’

During the day the station is manned by one of the auxiliaries, DavidSealy. Normally a permanent officer would be on duty, but Mt Morgandoes not seem to be an attractive position for a station officer. Five of theauxiliaries work in Mt Morgan and the remainder of the complementof three officers and twelve firies work in Rockhampton. The stationhas only one woman—‘a mum’, as Kellie de Landelles puts it—on thebooks. Most members work for Queensland Rail, the shire council,local industry or are self-employed. One is an ambulance officer andanother is the local undertaker. The crews’ ages range from 27 to 57 andthe least experienced crewmember has three years’ service. The averagetime in service is thirteen years.

After training, the crew retire to a most salubrious social club, whichhas a memorial garden named in honour of one of their number, LyleCurtis, who died while attending a fire in November 1997. Lyle was39 years of age and apparently suffered a major heart attack. The socialclub goes a long way toward maintaining the very strong spirit of thishearty crew. It’s a spirit I noted immediately on meeting them after theJames Street save.

Sarina

When I was planning this book I asked then Chief Commissioner WayneHartley (himself a Mt Morgan man) whom I should interview as auxili-ary station representatives. Captain Barry Mooney and his crew at Sarinaheaded the list as a ‘role model’ for auxiliaries around the State. Sarina isa sugar-milling town with a population of about 4000 and is nearMackay, roughly halfway between Rockhampton and Townsville. BarryMooney at the time was president of the Auxiliary FirefightersAssociation. He works for Queensland Rail and has been in the brigadefor just over 30 years. He became a firefighter in response to a requestfor crew. Barry says: ‘It was just a small town, community-minded thing.I didn’t know you got paid, and they needed volunteers.’ Two days afterhe joined, down in Gin Gin, he was at a house fire—with almost notraining!

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Sarina is a very busy, fully auxiliary station; unfortunately the bulk ofthe work is cutting people out of wrecked cars. In 1999 the stationresponded to 153 calls, 70 per cent of which were MVAs. Yet Barry notes:‘Normally it’s around 80 per cent but strangely it has dropped since a110 kilometre per hour trial (up from 100 kilometres per hour) on asection of the highway began. Sarina is acknowledged as ‘the RAR capitalof Queensland’. The traffic accidents seem to be due to a mix of distancetravelled, fatigue and speed. Most of the callouts to MVAs are in mid-afternoon and into the early evening. Semi-trailers and trucks feature injust over half of the accidents and these, according to Barry, are ‘fairlygruesome’. I remarked on a ‘thank you’ card on the notice board andBarry explained that it was from a truck driver who had lost his youngson in an accident. The card, which thanked the firies for their efforts,had a photo of the boy inside it.

The distances the Sarina crew might have to travel to respond to anincident are huge. They can sometimes go up to 150 kilometres inresponse to a callout from their Firecom in Rockhampton. The stationhas two composite appliances each with over 2000 litres water capacity.One is kitted mostly for MVAs and the other primarily for fires. Likemost auxiliary stations, Sarina has a system on callout in which Firecomautomatically rings ten homes (pagers). If the pagers fail, which is rarely,the station siren is activated.

Sarina has had several fires of note in the past, one of the most mem-orable being a fire in a warehouse full of ammunition that beganexploding as the firies were battling the blaze. Barry says he had beenassured that the ammunition would not do any damage, but whenbullet holes started appearing in the roof he quickly altered his attackplan.

Sarina has an establishment of three officers and twelve firefighters,but the crew turnover is high owing to the nature of the sugar industryand fluctuating economic conditions in remote rural areas. Barry says:

I was down to seven or eight firies last year. We were training somerecruits and they got instant on-the-job training. In the past,recruitment was usually by word of mouth and I had a waiting list.Nowadays it’s not so—there’s a distinct lack of young people withcommunity spirit or drive. Also, economic times are tough and

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some employers are reluctant to release workers, but the localsugar mill is okay.

Barry always confronts a potential recruit with the money question.‘I make sure they know there’s no money in it. They do get paid but it’snot huge. In Sarina they might get $5000 per annum, because of ourhigh turnout rate.’

I visited Sarina on a Wednesday night. It was bucketing rain and thetraining for the crews was a Case 4 drill. A large 100–150-mm hose isused for drawing or inducing water through a filter (attached to the endof the hose). This drill is used to supplement a water supply from a damor river in the case of larger fires or where the water mains supply maybe threatened or where reticulated water is not available. Barry hadscheduled the training after some confusion with a new pump the othernight while drawing water from a creek for a house fire. The crewreturned soaked from ‘playing in the rain’ but were adamant that theyhad the right answers for the next time they faced a Case 4 situation.Despite looking like drowned rats, they were beaming.

The crew profile for Sarina is dramatically different from Mt Morganand Killarney, with the average period of service in the brigade beingonly eight years and over half of the crew having less than three years’active service. The movement of people in and out of Sarina is a hugechallenge for Barry Mooney in maintaining fire service delivery. Luckilyhe gets great support from the local newspaper and media whenever heruns a recruiting drive, but it is always a problem finding people whoare willing to give up their spare time. The Sarina crew are a maturebunch, with the youngest being 26 (a local schoolteacher) and Barry theoldest at 55. Many of the crew work locally at the local sugar mill ordistillery, for the railways, the shire council or in local businesses. Thereare two women in the crew. One is a mother who ‘wanted a challengeand wanted to give something to the community and the people; maybeeven save lives and property’.3 Most of the crew are married and havechildren of their own. All are dedicated to their community and takepride in their service to it.

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THE RURAL FIRE SERVICEYou can hear some fires coming—they roar. The wind is the biggest factorand can trap you real quick. A fire in the open grass, and a brush or scrubfire in the bush, are the most dangerous. We never attack a fire front on, butalways attack from the flanks and pinch it in until it can be knocked downfrom the front. The hardest part of fighting bushfires is to stop people pan-icking. And with volunteers it’s quite different from the permanents. Peoplehave to be ‘asked’ to go and do a job. One thing, though: I never asksomeone to do something that I won’t do.

Roy Moss, Yuleba Rural Fire Brigade

The Rural Fire Service (RFS) is an enormous organisation that covers thelength and breadth of Queensland. The 45 000 volunteers are organisedinto 1628 rural fire brigades. These brigades are supported by 250 chieffire wardens, who act in much the same way as area directors with thepermanent firefighters. The wardens report to fifteen district inspectors.

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CHAPTER 5


Because the rural brigades are volunteers and unpaid, there is no setorganisation in any one area. It is more a case of ‘when there is a fire weneed all the help we can get’. Equipment varies from a homemade watertank and pump on the tray of a 4WD ute to a state-of-the-art, QFRS-designed 4WD light attack unit with all manner of equipment includinga device to produce foam. The appliances are often what the RFS hasbeen able to beg, borrow or steal or what the QFRS has handed overafter use in the permanent and auxiliary units.

The RFS plays a very important part in managing the fire hazardacross the State. In rural areas it responds to bush and grass fires as ‘firstresponse’ and the volunteers are called out either by pager or by tele-phone depending on what communications exist in the district. If life orproperty is threatened, the auxiliaries will respond (or permanent fire-fighters will if they’re in the area). The RFS will back up auxiliaries, andvice versa, as needs dictate.

Northwest of Toowoomba is a tiny country town called Yuleba, witha population of about 200. The area is pastoral and the Yuleba brigadelooks after an area about 70 kilometres long by 20 kilometres wide. RoyMoss is a grazier and the second officer of the Yuleba Rural Fire Brigade,and has been a volunteer for over 40 years. He was awarded theAustralian Fire Service Medal for his long and dedicated service to theRFS. The main occupation in the area is grazing, mostly cattle, a fewsheep. Roy says of the surrounding countryside: ‘It’s heavily scrubbed,there is a lot of pull cultivation—in one case some 7000 acres underwheat on one property. In the bush it’s virgin country, with wattle, pineand ironbark.’ Some areas, like the State forests, are very heavilytimbered. Roy says: ‘There are gorges there that kept us busy for a weekone time. You can’t go in after the fire or you’ll get cut off.’

Roy joined the RFS to help his neighbours in times of fire. Helaughs: ‘We had a few pubs burn down and we needed a fire brigade.’But it is easy to understand that, in remote rural localities where neigh-bours can be tens of kilometres apart, a system has to be in place tocombat a fast-moving grassfire. Roy felt that joining a brigade wasessential to your own livelihood; you had to be organised on the groundor people would get hurt.

Some 70 men and women members are on the Yuleba brigade’sbooks. There is a big representation from the town and from outlying

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areas up to 30 kilometres away. Roy remarks: ‘They join and stay untilthey either die or move away.’ Apart from the 70 who engage in fight-ing fires, there are many ‘support troops’. These people are the greatunsung heroes in any firefighting, providing the personnel for rest areaswhere the firefighters can clean up and get a drink and a feed after hoursof ‘chasing flames and eating smoke’ all day. The brigade has three appli-ances: a new Canter 4WD, a hand-me-down International pumper unit,and a 1952 Landrover with a small 455-litre tank on back, with a high-pressure pump. The Landrover is what the RFS refers to as a ‘lightattack’ unit and allows movement in difficult terrain to quickly quellany small outbreaks.

The experienced second officer and captain, who are also qualifiedworkplace instructors, provide most of the firefighting training. Theyare supplemented by training officers from elsewhere. (There are about60 full-time staff whose job it is to support the RFS brigades through-out the State.) Regular training at Yuleba takes place on a Tuesday nightor a Saturday afternoon. One thing that is stressed is that brigademembers must always work in teams and always be in personal or radiocontact. No one must be left alone.

RFS members wear fire-retardant yellow overalls and smocks. Theirhelmets are being fitted with flaps, because they need high collars at theback of the neck to protect them from the heat. They have found thatgloves are vital but, as Roy observes, ‘they make it hard to use an axe’.The Yuleba brigade people don’t use beater poles to deal with fires onthe ground, preferring to use branches ‘because they are lighter and it iseasier to get a circular motion going than trying to lift a six-foot-longbeater pole’. Other hand-operated equipment includes axes, shovels,rakes and hoes; and flame-drippers (drip torches) for back-burning.Roy says with a laugh: ‘They used flame-throwers in the old days, usingan old knapsack spray. They threw out a 15-foot burst of flame, but wegave them away when they started leaking!’

Ever since he was old enough, Roy Moss has been chasing fires. Inhis part of Queensland the wind is one of the greatest dangers in fight-ing grass and bush fires. The speed with which a driven fire can moveis alarming to any firefighter. Vince Hinder was out in the Toowoombaranges one day when a big fire started coming up the steep escarpmenttoward the town.

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Scrub fires are bad if they get big—they are dangerous. I went toone on the escarpment and we were spraying water down on itwhen it just roared up the hill. It threw all the burning stuffthrough the air and started fires 200 yards behind us.

Attack strategies for fires depend on (a) the fuel load on the groundor in the bush, (b) the wind and (c) the terrain. Most times the only wayto stop a grassfire is to create a firebreak. Most dozer-generated fire-breaks are three to four metres wide, and the firefighters can thenback-burn from that space. Roy says: ‘The rule of thumb for a decentfirebreak is 40 metres, but that is hard to achieve in most places.’

The first port of call in any fire is the property owner, who can advisethe brigade on the quickest way and best location to establish a fire-break. The local shire council and the RFS members then set to, oftenusing their own equipment such as tractors and graders. Roy goes on:‘We try to use natural obstacles, like roads or creeks, and add the breakto them. Sometimes we need to go a long way ahead of the fire front toavoid spot fires, which can be 200 yards out, depending on the wind.’He remembers that the longest spell he had making firebreaks was eightdays. He was driving a bulldozer by day, sleeping at night and gettingback into it at first light the next morning. He remarks: ‘That fire burnt300 000 acres.’

One of the more dangerous bushfires a firefighter can face is whenthe flames are up in the tops of the trees. These are called crown fires.Roy has a lot of respect for them.

The eucalyptus in the leaves is the main fuel for those fires. Oncethey start they just go, and then they roar. A crown fire can some-times be half a mile ahead of the ground fire. It burns like a petrolfire and can go faster than you can run. As it goes along it’s drop-ping burning material like leaves, bark and small branches andthey start more fires . . . you can be trapped underneath. Thescariest part of firefighting for me is a crown fire. It can go throughso quickly, and if you don’t notice it and need to get out, then itcan be tricky. Sometimes you have to take cover and look for burntground. The credo is: don’t go in where you can’t get back out. It’sonly bush—the grass will grow again but a dead man won’t.



Certain species of trees can provide other dangers, like the Wulgatrees that abound in Roy’s area. The trees contain a natural reservoir ofoils and they can actually ‘cook’. The trees will reach a certain limit andthen unexpectedly explode, sending burning hot debris shooting upinto the air.

Firefighters often think back on their tougher experiences. Roy’smost memorable fire was near Rolleston, ‘up at the Bluff ’, many yearsago. The men had five vehicles and found they had to get out, andquickly. Roy was driving an old Ford and had it flat to the boards toescape the roaring flames. He recalls:

We were hurtling down a two-wheel track at 40 miles an hour[65 km/h] and we couldn’t get away from it! We just made it to thecreek in time. It was the worst fire experience I’ve had. The firewas 15 feet from us and twice that in height. In that fire 30 cattleand 24 horses were lost and some other cattle never grew their hairback. Sadly, even the horses couldn’t beat the fire. The loss of stockand property was terrible. But I think the worst was seeing animalsburnt—you knew they’d died in agony. Goannas and stuff wereokay, but for koalas and possums that couldn’t get out of the wayit was pretty bad.

Graham Cooke, the area director at Dalby, has seen huge fires. ‘Wehad some in 1996–97 in the State forest and up to 100 000 hectares wereburnt. And I’ve seen other individual fires covering 40 000 hectares.’When they’re that big everyone gets involved and it’s hard, hot work, asKevin Neilsen of Southport, who has attended many fires in the GoldCoast hinterland recalls:

You would walk fifteen or more kilometres a day, just chasingflames and eating smoke—thick, white, green-grey smoke. Thewhole process just eats you out. Pine forests that are spotting[burning material blowing ahead and starting new fires] withturpentine . . . the stuff will go a mile and then start again. There’slots of walking—drinking a lot of water—and you’re totally bug-gered at the end of a shift. On my first day off after a grassfire Icouldn’t move.



At the fire

On the outbreak of a fire the Yuleba brigade usually gets a call fromFirecom by pager. Whoever is in charge on turnout will dispatch a reccevehicle to check the situation; normally it’s the first officer who goes.A siren in town is also activated. Roy says: ‘Usually 30 people will turnup, with a minimum of 20. The word gets around very quickly.’ Thebrigade officers evaluate the situation on the ground with the help of theproperty owner, develop a plan of attack, establish radio contact withother brigades, and then deploy the firefighters. Brigade members drivein their own cars to the assembly area set up.

The brigade is broken up into various crews depending on themembers’ level of expertise and experience. The safety of the crews isparamount. Thongs, shorts and T-shirts are not allowed to be worn onthe job, and many members keep their kit in their car. There are ‘onground’ crews and ‘truck-mounted’ crews. The crews don’t just rushoff and start attacking the fire. They are organised into teams and thereis always a reserve in hand to spell the first ‘attack’ team. The teams areformed with a blend of experience to help break new people in.

In a team of four, one person takes the lead and knocks the fire down,the next does some more and then the third. The last person mops up.Then a second team come along and their job is to bury smoking bitsof wood and the like—especially cow manure. Cow pats can burnunnoticed for days and unless buried—or fully burnt up—can restart afire in a freshening wind. As the team work their way along the flank ofthe fire, the lead person is relieved and goes back to number four. Thisrotation system is designed to take the ‘point’ firefighter away from theheat for a time. Once the fire is beaten, the crews keep patrolling tomake sure it is well and truly out.

At a fire ground the firefighters often use auxiliary pumps to drawwater from dams into council tankers with 8000-litre capacity. Thetankers provide a mobile water-replenishment system and each onetakes only about five minutes to fill, reducing the turn-around time forthe pumpers—the attack vehicles.

But finding a reliable water supply is the biggest challenge and oftenthe greatest frustration for a rural brigade. If they’re a long way from asupply there’s the risk of ‘down time’ with no water, during which a fire



can quickly re-establish itself. Roy Moss says the feeling of frustrationcan be all-consuming ‘after working your guts out and fighting againstMother Nature—and just when you have the fire beaten you run out ofwater’.

After a fire the brigade returns to its base in town, where informaldebriefings are held. Roy explains:

It’s not a formal event but more about what lessons were learned.No two bushfires are the same and I have been to hundreds. We talkabout dramas and mistakes that were made and what we will do tocorrect them. It is all just based on common sense. We also bring outthe good points. Then we refurbish and replenish the trucks andcheck all the equipment. We must always be ready to go.

Community scene

The Yuleba brigade exists on donations from the community. It oftenreceives contributions from landowners for reducing fuel loads andother fire hazards on properties. Roy insists that these are donations, notcharges. The brigade sometimes run raffles, but as Roy notes, it gets abit hard on a small community: ‘You can only bite people so manytimes.’ In fact people actually pay to join the brigade! It costs $10 forproperty owners and $5 for those who rent local houses. It’s a way ofestablishing a working fund for the brigade and smacks of amateurrugby players paying for the privilege of playing in a competition. TheYuleba brigade members have to buy their own equipment, unlike theQFRS permanents and auxiliaries who are issued with their gear. Thereis a certain deal of frustration with the Government for not fully sup-porting rural fire brigades, although they do get a 50 per cent subsidy onany equipment. But as Roy says: ‘We still have to raise the initial money.’Some of the equipment that is ‘new’ to the Yuleba brigade is in factalmost 30 years old and only through the generosity of some localmechanics and a good deal of self-help does some of it stay on the road.Roy recalls that one of the brigade’s vehicles was taken back by the oldQueensland Fire Service because it was wanted for a museum—theYuleba crew were still using the truck at fires!



The brigade has at times turned out to structural fires, because of thelack of an auxiliary brigade in town. Roy says proudly that they haveonly lost one house in the town in 40 years. One of the fastest turnoutsoccurred when a hotel caught fire in 1971. Roy laughs: ‘From the startof siren until the truck arrived was just three minutes. They reallywanted to save the pub!’

Road accident rescue falls in the bailiwick of the local SES, which hasa good deal of extrication and cutting equipment. Many members of thefire brigade are also members of the SES—a feature that is widespreadacross the State.

On the wider scene, there is a move afoot in many communities tostop back-burning as a strategy of hazard management. In some areas ofQueensland back-burning has ended and elsewhere there has been ahold on fuel load reduction—all in the cause of ‘clean air’. As a result,in October/November 2000 there were 3000 reported fires in the Statein a period of just over two weeks. In the North Coast Region alone,200 fires were reported in a 30-day period in the preceding two months.Fred Heiniger of Nambour has some strong feelings on the subject:

I think it is only touching the sides. If we didn’t have a total fireban we would be in trouble. People are stopped from burning off,because others complain of their dramas with asthma, and the fuelload builds up. As soon as there’s a fire, or someone is given apermit, I can guarantee that our phones will run hot. Like, ‘Whatare you trying to do, kill me?’—that type of stuff. You are not goingto get away from having smoke with a fire, and the growth is stillthere. If it starts we could easily have something bigger than wecan handle.

Barry Salway, also of Nambour, agrees and says of the large numberof grass and bush fires they had to attend:

It wasn’t extraordinary. It comes down to seasonal conditions andin the last two years we’ve had unusually excessive rain comparedto what we would normally get in southeast Queensland. Thisproduced an excessive amount of fuel undergrowth and grass. Andthen we had a month of extremely dry weather, which created



perfect bush and grass fire conditions. It seems that once footageof a grassfire appears on TV it activates the juvenile fire-lightersaround the place. Grass doesn’t normally spontaneously combust!So how do the fires start if you haven’t got any lightning?



FIREFIGHTINGIt’s all about trying to bring organisation into the chaos that exists at almostevery fire incident.

Station Officer Tom Franks

When a fire truck turns up at a fire the crew follow an immediate-actiondrill. A quick look at the fire will show the station officer what is in-itially required. The officer will call out ‘Case 1’ (a high pressure hosereel) and where it’s to be positioned, and the number one and numberthree will jump into action. The truck driver (number two) will auto-matically start looking for the nearest hydrant to begin supplementingthe onboard water supply.

The station officer determines from the owner or occupier, or frombystanders, if everyone in the building has been accounted for. He thendoes a quick 360-degree recce around the fire and decides whether ornot the crew needs more support. If so, he calls Firecom on his two-way

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CHAPTER 6


radio. Kevin Neilsen, who works on the Gold Coast, says: ‘If you wantstress in a job, be the first officer turning out to a high rise in SurfersParadise. Just try to find the alarm panel!’

Station Officer Tom Franks adds:

Arriving at a fire scene? It’s about gaining information so that assoon as the station officer says over his radio that there are ‘personsreported’ in the dwelling, the team can automatically switch tosearch and rescue as a priority over fighting the fire. Firefighting isabout being calm in a crisis, having good immediate-action drillsand being able to react to the many variables that impact on a firesituation. There is no set procedure for what to do on arriving at afire. The officer must do a quick assessment, get the team intoaction and gain as much information from the owner/occupier aspossible. If there is no owner/occupier present, neighbours orobservers will be quickly quizzed and the men swing into action.Time is precious.

When crews first turn up at a fire that is ‘going’, for a while they don’tknow exactly what they’re dealing with—until they actually get into thejob. The flames and heat are just one side of the equation, the smokeand gases are another. The fire can reach ‘super-hot’ levels withinminutes and the firies must be aware of dangers like flashover and back-draught.

Neil Smith comments that the business of fighting fires has evolvedto a very scientific level, with techniques evolving all the time. Hesays:

The old days of ‘putting the wet stuff on the red stuff ’ are gone—the days of just rushing in and pulling the odd mattress out and . . .spreading water throughout the place. That is a part of it, but thereare new techniques to make sure we don’t underrate the buildingand cause inner explosions and backdraughts and stuff like that.Not only that, but insurance companies require us to be carefulabout how much water we use and how much damage we doinside buildings. And our bosses require it as well. So we are verycareful. It is now more of a ‘search and destroy’—we get in there,

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search it out and destroy only the fire. And then we get out andleave the place the way it was.

This wasn’t exactly the case when Dick Gledhill was a probationaryand a very, very ‘green’ firefighter. He turned out to a cafe fire one dayand wasn’t used to the power of the hoses.

It was my second day on the job. There was a lot of smoke and Ithink I did more damage than the bloody fire, because I didn’tknow what I was doing. I hosed the crockery off the shelves andwas breaking glasses and so on. Thankfully, after five minutesI was relieved, and I started learning from there.

Into the breach

At one time a BA set was worn only if the smoke was really thick andchoking. Peter Beauchamp recalls an incident when he was a very juniormember of a crew in Brisbane and was tagging along behind a highlyexperienced firefighter ‘of the old school’. It was like something out ofan American firefighter-training movie made just after World War II,where ‘real men didn’t use BA’.

An old brothel up in Paddington was really going and it was built ona slope. The floor that came off the street was the top floor of thebrothel. It was an old terrace building that went down three storeys.It was smoke-logged. I grabbed a line and got behind this old firieand in we went underneath—we had no BA then. I was coughingand spewing all over him. Somehow he found some fresh air in apocket in all this smoke and shit. He told me to take a breath andthen back up. I stayed in there for five minutes, not wanting to leave,and then he told me to get out. He was in there for 30 minuteseating that smoke and I just couldn’t believe it.

Russell Mayne recalls that, when he first started fighting fires overtwenty years ago, ‘we were never encouraged to use a BA initially—ithad to be some sort of major incident and then you would have to get

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the officer’s permission’. Today it is almost mandatory to put a BA seton, even for a car fire because there is so much plastic in cars. Russelladds: ‘Once upon a time you would go into a house fire, come out, havea big spew and then go back in again.’ But things have changed a lot atthe fire ground because of plastics. ‘They’re a big cause for concern, thefoam rubbers, the vinyls and even nylon carpets. We have TVs,computers, bedside clocks, microwaves—everything is on 24 hours aday and it’s all plastic.’

But the firies keep coming back to the unknowns they face on arrivalat a fire. Many think that this is the scariest part of the job. As NeilSmith explains: ‘You don’t know whether you’re going to fall downthrough a building. You never know if oxygen or acetylene is going togo off in your face when you walk into the place.’ Neil Lesmond hadjust such a time when he went into a burning campervan and a youngfirie yelled at him to get out. ‘When I asked why, he said there were twogas cylinders venting below me! I looked out of the vehicle window andsure enough there they were—two cylinders just going whooosh!’

The crews survive in these situations because they work as a team. AsStation Officer Neil Lesmond remarks: ‘The eyes of everybody withyou on the fire ground are watching and listening. Everybody is lookingout for everybody else, and you know that someone is watching youwhen you’re in doing your job.’ Few people realise just how dangerousa job it is. Kevin Neilsen comments: ‘It’s like a war zone. It’s a verydangerous job. You never ever know what will happen next.’

The firies can always tell you about their first fire; it is etched foreverinto their memories. Peter Beauchamp vividly recalls his first fire,almost 28 years ago:

I was still a probationary and had just gone on shift. It was next tothe old Gordon & Gotch building in Boundary Street in FortitudeValley . . . a house next to it was going like a bomb. We pulled upand I had eyes like saucers. The officer was Alec Anderson . . . Hetold me to run a line up between the house and the Gordon &Gotch building and try to protect that exposure. An old and greatfirie called Tom Murphy grabbed me and said, ‘Come on, Beach,you’re with me’, and off we went. I thought: ‘What the hell am Idoing up here?’ I had flames ripping around my ears. In those days

FIREFIGHTING 83


our gear was primitive—denims, ankle boots, and a woollenturnout coat that only went to the waist. We had no gloves and wewore a polycarbonate helmet that offered almost no protection.I had my eyebrows singed, my hair singed, my arms singed—andit was a great experience.

As soon as the station officer or one of the crew is made aware thatthere are ‘persons reported missing’, the action on the fire groundchanges drastically from one of fighting a fire to one of search and rescue.If there is smoke, wearing a BA set is mandatory and the number one andnumber three will check out through the pump operator, who acts as aBA station controller and monitors their air time on a special board at theback of the pump. The station officer will normally designate their areaof search and they may take a charged line in with them. Their aim is toquickly search for the missing people, hoping they’ll find them beforethe people are overcome by smoke—the biggest killer in fires.

These search and rescue tasks can be very dangerous. Pat Hopperrecalls an incident of a murder/suicide at a house in Cairns:

There was a fellow in the backyard with his throat cut, and gascylinders were going off and hissing away in the house. He had setit on fire. Then there was a call that there was a bomb in the house.Then we were told that the fellow’s wife was inside—and we hadto go in, with venting cylinders in the house!

Sometimes the searches result from false or misleading information,but it is not the time to try and check. Brian Edmonds of Rockhamptonsays: ‘I went to the old Mac’s Brewery fire and that was huge. The wallswere starting to collapse and we were told that there were deros[vagrants] inside. But in fact they were mannequins made for somepublicity job.’

Most firefighters can recall a ‘good save’, especially when it involveslife or death. Neil Smith remembers one on the Sunshine Coast:

Out at Wurtulla the boss I have now, Ian Shepherd, and I and twoothers went to a house fire. We got a call about what we thoughtwas a ‘dead lady’ in this house. Actually it was a ‘deaf lady’—it got

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garbled over the radio. What had happened was, the front of herhouse was on fire and she had slipped over trying to get out andhit her head on a brick wall. She went down in the hallway. We gother out. She wasn’t breathing, but the boys did CPR [resusci-tation] and got her going again. That was good.

A save like that makes the firies feel good. Smith adds: ‘Bloodyfantastic, when you know that she’s still alive today and working for theDeaf Foundation and doing a marvellous job. Apart from that we savedthe house too.’

Bob Buckley of Toowoomba had a somewhat unusual save when heturned out to a fire in a men’s outfitters store in town one night.

We called it the ‘Roberts fire’. We arrived, did a search, and I founda man down and carried him out. The ambos were there and theyrevived him. It turned out he was a Bailey Henderson [psychi-atric] patient and he’d torched the store—I had saved the bloodyarsonist!

Pat Hopper once attended a fire in Cairns; a fire in a flat above a shop.His mate Pat Scanlan was up on a ladder, while Hopper had gone up theback stairs. Scanlan looked through a bedroom window and said hecould see someone inside. He yelled out to Hopper, and after puttingtheir BA sets on, the pair burst into the bedroom and franticallysearched it, but couldn’t find anyone. They ventilated the room andthen, on the back of the door they’d entered, they found a life-sizephoto of a nude woman!

Sometimes a structural fire is described as ‘fully involved’, meaningthat it’s well under way and smoke and flames are coming out of everyopening in the building. The great danger here is that the structure hasprobably been weakened. When firefighters are inside such a building the‘pucker factor’ tends to increase and they really have to be on their toes.Neil Lesmond was once at a big job in Townsville, a fire at Hannon’sHotel, a four-storey brick and wooden structure. It was 2.00 a.m.

I was on the branch and the firefighter behind me was LloydSexton. We heard this noise above us like a crashing sound and I

FIREFIGHTING 85


asked Lloyd if he could hear it, and he said he could. When I askedwhat it was, he said he didn’t know. No sooner had we finishedtalking about it than an enormous piece of timber—like a railwaysleeper—crashed through the roof and bounced at my feet. Rightin front of me! I absolutely shat myself.

A barbecue restaurant went up in Surfers Paradise, in Cavill Avenue,in 1973. A huge smoke plume filled the sky, going 1000 metres into theair. As the turntable ladder truck went screaming down the streettoward the blaze, there was a bizarre incident. The officer’s helmetstrap caught on, and triggered, a 9-kilogram dry powder extinguisherinside the truck cabin, covering the officer and the driver in whitepowder and sending white smoke streaming out of the windows as theydrove along.

Kevin Neilsen describes the subsequent battle for the restaurant:

It was a multi-unit fire and all units from our area attended; we hadtwo from Southport, Surfers Paradise and Burleigh Heads. But welost it. It was just a pump operator’s nightmare. The hydrants wereacross the road diagonally and there were still cars on the road.There was a high fuel load in the mezzanine level from stacks andstacks of old newspapers. One of the barbecue fires in the fluedivision caught fire and she went off real quick. Access was almostnil: we couldn’t get at it except from the front . . . not even roofaccess. We saved the adjoining properties. But it was huge. It tookabout an hour plus to control. We managed to contain it to thekitchen, restaurant and mezzanine level. The owner wasn’t toounhappy and brought a carton of beer down to the station the nextday. I guess that means we were valued.

No two fires are ever the same. One day the Acacia Ridge crew wasturned out to a structural fire in an industrial area on Brisbane’s southside, not far from Archerfield aerodrome. The fire call was to a shed onfire in Beattie Road. As the truck started hurtling toward the fire thecrew could see a black plume of smoke about 8 kilometres distant. Thecrew arrived and people outside the building were madly waving theirarms. Russell Mayne was on a branch.

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We went in and it was burning well. We got water on it, but wecouldn’t put it out and it was getting bigger by putting water on it.We couldn’t figure it out. As we got in further we saw there wasthis massive hole in the roof where tin was hanging in. Weadvanced a bit further and there was an aeroplane motor lying onthe floor. A lot of those places worked on plane engines and thestation officer said they were probably working on a plane motorand it had blown up. I said: ‘Well, how come all the iron is point-ing in—why wouldn’t it be pointing out?’ Anyway, we got a littlebit further in and then I saw what I thought was a store dummylying on the floor. There were five people dead in there. A twin-engine aircraft had taken off from Archerfield and had comethrough the roof. These poor blokes were in the lunchroom andthe plane came straight down on top of them.

The reason why Russell’s crew could not extinguish the fire is thatwater and magnesium don’t mix, and the addition of water and oxygenin that form makes magnesium burn more intensely. Ask any firie whohas been to a fire involving a Volkswagen and they’ll confirm how wellthe air-cooled engine reacts to water!

Some areas are more fire-prone than others, as Russell discoveredwhen he was stationed at Woodridge many years ago. Surprisingly, theyonly had one appliance and one and three on duty, although many firiesbelieve it was one of the busiest structural fire stations in Queensland.There were and still are a lot of Housing Commission houses, rentalsand a huge industrial area to look after. Russell remembers: ‘When I wasthere we had 52 schools—that is, primary schools, private schools, highschools—everything. It was an enormous area and we used to look afterit with one pump!’ Russell recalls one memorable tour of duty (a tourbeing two days and two nights on shift). ‘We had eleven major structuralfires in one tour. It was incredible . . . and that was without roadaccidents and whatever else.’

Some jobs are so big and so involved by the time the 000 call is putin that there is nothing the firefighters can do except ‘surround anddrown’. Their main priority will be to protect the properties on eachside of a building that can’t be saved and stop the fire from spreading.You know you’ve got a ‘biggie’ when something like this happens—as it

FIREFIGHTING 87


did to the Woodridge crew one Friday night. Firecom had turned themout to the Expo furniture factory in Johnson Road at Browns Plains.

About ten past seven we got the call and there was just on two acresunder roof. When we pulled up it was totally involved. It was un-believable. They sent eight pumps and two aerial platforms. Threemetres across the laneway was another shed just as big that held allthe spray paint and equipment—which we saved in the end.

We’d pulled up back a bit [from the fire] and I thought: ‘This isBIG.’ The flames were coming horizontally out of the top of theroof. Straight across the road there was this massive transformerup on a power pole and it started to make noises and I thought:‘Jesus!’ Then it made a real big noise and we decided to get out ofthere and started running. We had just left when it blew. This wasall before we’d even got a line of water on to the fire! The placewas pretty well lit up by the fire but it looked like ten sunsets all atonce when the transformer blew. We hit the deck and I thought:‘Christ, where do we start with this one?’1

If a 000 fire call comes in after midnight and Firecom advise the crew‘multiple calls, fire and smoke’, it’s usually a good sign that there’ll be atough battle at a house fire. Kev Anderson explains: ‘In the late eveningor early morning you’re normally relying on passing taxis, or someonebeing awake, to report a fire.’ Such houses are usually well involved bythe time the crews get there and then keeping the fire to just two orthree rooms is a good save. Michael Quinn, who had been a stationofficer at Garbutt in Townsville for eleven years, has some thoughts onfires in these circumstances:

Smoke alarms are okay but, if there is no alarm, what usuallywakes people up—either victims or neighbours—is the breakingand popping of burning glass and other objects inside the house. Itusually means that by this stage the fire is already involved, andprobably before the 000 call is made. So it could be three to fiveminutes before we arrive, and the fire has had that amount of timeto intensify. It only takes about six minutes for a fire to build up toits fiercest point.

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Even being close to a fire station is no great comfort; it all depends onwhen the call is made in relation to how long combustion has been ineffect. I have taken part in several shifts and responded with fire crewsall over the State, and the longest period from the time Firecom acti-vated a turnout to when the truck was moving out of the doors was justover one minute. It didn’t matter whether it was day or night, andwhether the firies were in their dormitory or not, the crew were alwayson the truck and moving in that time frame. Mick Quinn offers anexample:

One morning in November 1999 we had a call. The sun was justup. It was a bedroom fire less than a kilometre from the SouthTownsville station. As the crews turned out I saw a large amountof black smoke and so I knew the fire was going. By the time wegot there the building was fully involved. Flames were coming outon all sides and so much so that I couldn’t do a proper 360-degreerecce around the building. This was all within two minutes ofgetting the call. The initial call was for a bedroom fire, but by thetime we arrived I had to give a Code 99, which meant ‘buildingwell involved with fire’. I had to use the properties next door tocomplete the recce. Because of the ferocity of the fire we wereunable to see two gas cylinders sitting at the side of the building—they would have invoked a quick change in priorities!

The house was unable to be saved, so the attack plan now was toprotect the adjoining properties and to save the unfortunate owner’s car,which was in the front yard.

At times all the hard work can seem in vain, as Kev Anderson and hiscrew found in a suburb in Townsville.

It was early in the morning, at Hermit Park. The fire was con-tained to a back kitchen and one bedroom but there was a lot ofsmoke damage—though not a lot of water damage. The crewworked brilliantly, way beyond what was normal. I put two ofthem through the front door. Wayne Barter and Alan Bell took ina thermal imaging camera so they could go straight to the seat ofthe fire—that’s why the water damage was minimal. Another two

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went around the back, including Mick McCloskey, and made anexternal attack. When we’d arrived there was smoke coming outfrom every eave all the way around the house, but we knocked thefire down in a matter of minutes. We thought we’d done a greatjob—but a bit later they went and demolished the house!

Fate, though, can be fickle. After the Hermit Park fire was out aneighbour telephoned the woman owner, who was out of town. KevAnderson continues: ‘All she was worried about was her deceasedfather’s ashes. I took the phone in and went looking for them as sheguided me to where they should have been. They were untouched,unburnt and unwet, so it was good.’

Sometimes members of the public just can’t help but get involved, asRay Eustace found when he was acting station officer at North Ipswichand had a big fire on his hands requiring a lot of hose work. Fire hoseshave male/female connections, and if the hoses are rolled out in thewrong order the firie has to double back dragging 30 metres of hose inorder to connect up the couplings. It is very heavy work. Ray recalls afrustrating moment in a firie’s life:

The Woollen Company was fuelled up with lanolin from end toend. The first crew arrived and were running out hose every-where, when the drunks from the nearby pub decided to lend ahand and pull all the hoses out for them. But they did it the wrongway! It was a monstrous crowd and there were no police to keepthem back.

Greg Scarlett knows about getting someone out of a building on fire.A man who had torched an Aboriginal hostel ran back into the smoke-clogged building for some reason. He was followed in by a firie calledJohn Cawco, who went in to save him. Greg, who was working inside—and like John was in breathing apparatus—heard some moaning.

I was about a metre and half above the floor on a pile of mattresses.I heard this voice and I put my arm out and, sure enough, Igrabbed on to this guy. He had fallen over and got wedged betweena table—which I couldn’t see in the thick smoke—and the door . . .

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So I grabbed him and somehow dragged him up on top of the mat-tresses—you do some superhuman things when the adrenaline’srunning. I remember really tussling and struggling to get him upand thinking, man, this guy is really stuck. It took a real effort toget him up on the mattresses so I could get him out.

What I didn’t know was that, when he ran into the room, Johnhad chased after him and dived in a tackle to stop him going intothe fire. Apparently the guy hit his head on something and also gotwedged in . . . and I was pulling him up to the top of the mattresseswhile John was pulling on his foot! So the poor guy was reallybeing stretched . . . In the end I got him out . . . But I found Johnwandering around looking quite disconsolate with only a gymboot in his hand! I had pulled the guy out of his boot.

Other fires

If a fire starts on, say, the tenth floor of a high rise building there isn’tmuch chance of a ladder or a monitor reaching the blaze. And the firiescan’t drag their hose lines up ten flights of stairs. They have to get upto the area and knock the fire down using the hose reel and hydrantsystem of the building itself. The first action is to check the alarm paneland see where the fire has been detected. The building supervisor orhotel staff should have already evacuated the building. In a high risethe population density can make a firie’s life extremely difficult—justgetting through the lobby can be a problem if people are millingaround. Then the firies take a lift and go to the floor below. Using liftsis always a risk even if the panel says otherwise, but time is often afactor. They then attack the fire via the stairwell and take it from there.Russell Mayne of Noosa has had plenty of experience in high risebuildings:

They’re pretty good now, the way they’re set up with air pressuresystems in the stairwells. When the alarms go off [in a lot of build-ings] the systems cause the air conditioners to pressurise thestairwells. They have extractor fans too—not like the old days whenthe stairwells just provided great flues for heat and flame.

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Neil Smith had his first encounter with a high rise fire when he was on an exchange program with the US. The firefighters swap jobs,cars and houses for about a year and gain experience in a differentenvironment.

I had a huge one in America—a fourteen-storey old people’shome. The seventh floor was on fire and we had to go up throughthe stairwells and of course the old people had all the stairwelldoors chocked open for easier access. So my job, because I was inBA and also being the youngest, was to go to the top floor and thencome back down and shut all the doors to stop the airflow. Thatwas a horrifically hot time.

Kevin Neilsen was working out of Queensland’s Southport stationwhen they had a most unusual incident one New Year’s Eve in theMadison Apartments at Broadbeach. The fire was on the eleventhlevel.

The room was on fire and choked with smoke. A rocket from anearby fireworks display had gone through a window and set fireto a bed. A civvy was using the hotel fire reel and standing on aledge with no railing trying to get water onto the fire. He waspissed and I had to get him inside. The sprinklers were good anddid their job, and all we had to do was damp down with the hosereel. But evacuation was a big problem, with hordes of peopleeverywhere—it took us five minutes just to get up to the fire.Today the public are simply told to get out.

Russell Mayne was working in the Brisbane city and had one of thosecalls that firies dread—a high rise working fire. It was their third call tothe Mayfair Crest Hotel that evening, only this time there really was afire. Russell and his number three broke into a room and found a manlying in his underpants on the bed.

There was a bit of smoke in the room and I thought he must havebeen overcome by it. So I went over to him and shook him andasked if he was alright. We both had breathing apparatus on, and

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he just sort of opened his eyes and let go with a big right hook. Wewere trying to settle him down and he just wouldn’t. My numberthree was getting pretty cheesed off with his swinging arms andfists. He just said, ‘Fuck this bloke’, and jobbed him. We carriedhim out to the stairs and the other firies took him down. We gotthe fire out and when it was all over this bloke was in the foyersound asleep on the floor and totally unaware of anything that washappening. He was obviously pissed, but imagine waking up andseeing two Martians looking at you. He must have woken up inthe morning with a headache and thought: ‘Gee, I’ve got to stopdrinking!’

The firies go to all sorts of fire situations, including vehicle fires.Apart from the obvious danger of a fuel tank exploding, there are othernasties that can cause the firefighters some concern, as Vince Hinderrelates:

Some truck fires are a problem when you get things like tailshaftsexploding, shock absorbers exploding—any liquid contained in ametal casing will explode in intense heat. But what’s worrying is—what’s in the load? I went to an accident where there was a 44-gallondrum of cyanide in the middle of the load of food in a semi-trailer.The driver didn’t even know. He’d just hooked up the trailer andhadn’t checked the manifest. A burning semi-trailer load could haveanything, so now we carry binoculars on the pumps so we can standoff and check the load before we go in.

Burning cars are fraught with danger and Kevin Neilsen of Southportbelieves strongly that if you don’t have to get close, then don’t get close.‘I was hit with a diff [differential housing] one night on my helmetwhen a car exploded on the Gaven Way.’ Sometimes fate deals a cruelhand, as Neil Smith found at one particularly bad vehicle fire.

We got a call that there was a tanker on fire and it wasn’t. It was thetanks of a truck—a semi-trailer carrying plasterboard—that wereon fire. When we arrived there was a car extensively damaged inthe middle of the median strip and two people were dead. The

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truck was on fire, there was a grass fire and it had got back into thehills, and it was just a huge job. It took a fair while to get it undercontrol.

I used to have a little business on the side on my days off,installing security screens. The very next day I went to this houseand, you wouldn’t believe it, but it was the house belonging to thepeople that had been killed the day before. Their son was there andfor some strange reason it tore me apart. Then he told me hismum had had dementia and his father had taken her up toNambour hospital to have her checked out. But the day beforethey went up to the hospital—the day they got killed—he had a flattyre on the front of his car so he put the spare on. On the way backfrom the hospital, the old spare—a retread—blew and draggedthem across the median strip in front of the old Ettamogah Puband into the front of the semi-trailer.

Russell Mayne once turned out to a poultry farm, to be confrontedby the awful sight of thousands of dead hens. ‘Roasted chooks. That wasjust heartbreaking, watching people’s lives ruined and everything gone:sheds, chooks, cars and trucks—everything.’

Ray Moore was working in Townsville and turned out to a fire in thebeachside suburb of North Ward about fifteen years ago. He recalls:

It was a fire in a block of flats. When we got there, everyone wasrunning out and not one person had anything on. Everyone wasnaked! Not much firefighting had to be done—it was a cookingfire. But in the nude? We didn’t ask. Looking at the occupants, itcould have been anything!

Some fires can be described as ‘self-dousing’, as Wayne McLennan ofTownsville found at one unusual job which Firecom had reported as afire in a laundry. ‘A washing machine had caught alight. The fire thenburnt up the wall, the heat melted the plastic water pipe, and the fire putitself out. There were plumes of smoke and we thought we had a goer,but when we got into the laundry it was out!’

Sometimes you needn’t get too technical. A probationary, MarcusMaffey, discovered this on turning out to a kitchen fire in Ingham.

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There was a large quantity of smoke. It was a pan fire on a stoveand the flames had hit the ceiling. I went to get an extinguisher offthe pump, but the station officer, Mark Castilano, walked up andtook the pan outside . . . all over and done with.

Impact on the firies

Attending a job in which people have perished or lost absolutely every-thing, or in which a business has been destroyed after years of hardwork, can have a considerable impact on fire crews. Greg Scarlett ofCaloundra puts it this way: ‘I usually find it affects me more when I gethome—not in a great way, but I certainly think about it. On the job youdetach yourself and you say to yourself: “Stay professional. You have ajob to do, so do it well.” ’ But dealing with people who are totallydistraught requires some expertise and the firies pride themselves onthe way they handle the public. It’s reflected in the fact that there havebeen ‘thank you’ cards on the notice board in every one of the 30 ormore stations I’ve visited.

A certain amount of frustration creeps into the job at a fire, especiallywhen the firies know the dwelling could have been saved if there’d beenan inexpensive smoke alarm. Many times they find alarms with thebatteries removed or gone flat. Batteries cost very little. The alarms acti-vate extremely quickly: it only takes a 2.7 per cent change in theatmosphere to trigger the beeping, and that could be the differencebetween saving and losing a house. Russell Mayne says:

Somebody’s house is their life; they have got their weddingphotos, kids’ photos, their engagement rings and wedding rings, orthe clothes they got married in. For most people, everythingthey’ve got is in that house. The quicker we can be notified of afire the better the chance we have of saving it.

Pat Scanlan turned up to a fire in a Cairns nightclub, where theowners decided not to evacuate the building and lose their customers.A fire was raging in a rear kitchen area and the staff had used all theirBCF extinguishers to no avail. They were trying to put out the fire with

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bottles of milk, when the crew stormed in and saved a volatile situationfrom becoming worse. The firies shake their heads at what some peopledo, not realising the lethal potential of a fire. Pat Hopper recalls a tragicincident in Cairns:

A bloke who owned a set of flats was trying to get vinyl tiles off thefloorboards and had to remove the contact glue. He decided to usea wire scraper brush on an industrial polisher. He poured petrolover the glue on the floor to loosen it. His wife tried to tell him itwasn’t safe. As soon as he hit the switch on the polisher it all wentup. He died later in hospital.

The distress and sadness can also affect the fire crews indirectly,because they can relate to an event through their own families. GrahamCooke remarks:

I went to a fire in a caravan one night where there were threeyoung boys involved. One was fatal and the rest had serious burns.Those three all went to the same school as my three kids and theywere all the same age. I could feel the impact through the schooland through my own kids.

On returning to the station, especially after a ‘bad job’ where a fatalityor some other traumatic event occurred, the crews have a debriefing onwhat happened. As one firefighter says:

It’s not a ‘bagging’ session. Everybody learns from it because it isnot done to pick on anybody. I might have seen something that theofficer didn’t see, and the pump operator might have seen some-thing that neither of us saw. Or the officer might have seensomething we were doing that was stupid and where we mighthave got ourselves hurt.2

The debriefing also acts as a kind of informal counselling session inwhich the firefighters can talk about what they saw and felt and can getsomething ‘off their chest’. Neil Smith has been to some pretty badincidents and likes the idea of the crew getting together in the firies

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mess after they are back in the station and have replenished the pumps.But he adds:

Well it happens before we even get back to the station. If we’ve hada severe incident where people have either died or been badly hurt,I’m always watching out of the corner of my eye. As soon as I getin the pump and we are coming back, we have a bit of a joke but Ikeep an eye on them to make sure their eyes are not rolling. Ifthey’re quiet you’ve got to be a bit worried about them. But ifthey’re joking, talking about it and getting it out of their systems,then they’re being normal. You know your men, and your blokesknow you, and they’ll keep an eye on you as well.

The visions of a fire linger long after the fire is out. The images mayfade but they remain in the firefighters’ memory. Kevin Neilsen wasattending his second last fire at Woodridge. On entering a bedroom hefound a small baby. ‘It was about three months old, burnt to a crisp andten inches long. It had shrivelled to half its length—like a little rabbitcaught in a bushfire.’ The mother had left a cigarette in the room whichhad set fire to a mosquito net. And Kev Anderson remembers a fire inTownsville. His crew had just put out a fire in which the family had ‘lostthe lot’. The young daughter came up to Kev and, he recalls, ‘put herarms around my legs and cried . . . and there is absolutely nothing youcan do to console a little girl like that’.

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RESCUE

The ‘R’ in QFRS stands for Rescue—primarily road accident rescue,and in particular the extrication of victims trapped in smashed cars. Butfirefighters also take part in other types of rescue. The most common ofthese are vertical rescue jobs, in which trapped people are removed frombuildings, steep terrain or wells and underground drains. Anythinginvolving the use of abseiling or rappelling by rope to retrieve someoneis considered vertical (or high angle) rescue. Swift-water rescue is thesaving of people from flooded creeks, raging torrents in rivers and so on.Urban search and rescue is more complicated and involves going intosituations where structural damage caused by an earthquake, flood orlandslip has trapped people in the debris. An example is the massivesearch and clean-up operation after the New York City World TradeCenter towers collapsed following the terrorist attack in September2001. Trench rescue is self-explanatory and is mainly the extrication ofpeople from collapsed diggings, usually on construction sites.

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CHAPTER 7


Road accident rescue

Twenty-five years ago the responsibility for extricating car smashvictims was not defined. Whoever turned up first—ambulance or firebrigade crews or tow truck drivers—and had chains, crowbars or hack-saws would attempt to remove the victims. It was done with good intentbut in reality the effort was crude and often caused as much injury andtrauma as the initial collision or impact.

Station Officer Ian Ames is considered one of the ‘gurus’ of RAR. Hebecame interested in this work at a very early time in his career. Now a22-year veteran, he has specialised in RAR for the last twenty years. Hebegan on what was called a ‘salvage truck’ and is now referred to as anemergency tender (ET). Ian has often worked out of the Mt Gravattstation and has attended literally hundreds of accidents. Mt Gravatt isvery close to the busy, high-speed Southeast Freeway and GatewayMotorway, where the work on RAR far exceeds the jobs done on fires.In the days before breath testing came in, Ian recalls, the Roma StreetET went to five ‘cutouts’ in one night. He vividly remembers his firstMVA—a ‘fatal’.

We went out to Kingsford Smith Drive. I can still remember it asif it was yesterday. It was a 1976 Falcon panel van that had gonestraight into a power pole—big time. I mean, the engine was onthe front seat. I got out and I was amazed at the lack of activity andkept asking what they wanted me to do. I was keen as mustard.They said: ‘Sit back, we won’t be doing anything for a while here.’I learnt that the worst thing with fatal accidents is that you arethere for hours and hours, you have to wait for the police and thetraffic accident appreciation squad and coroner. I looked aroundand there was debris everywhere . . . it was tragic. But it wasalso an eye opener. I was fascinated by it. I remember the nextmorning I drove home at about ten miles per hour, lookingaround everywhere!

The hydraulic tools used to cut or spread metal to allow access forfirst aid and removal were initially developed by the United States Navyto release trapped pilots from wrecked aircraft on aircraft carriers, where

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debris needed to be cleared quickly off the landing deck. Once fire-fighters and ambulance officers saw the benefits of using specificallydesigned hydraulic equipment, and its potential to reduce trauma andshock, it took a significant cultural change in the workplace to sort outwho should have primary carriage for the rescue in a car accident. It wasobvious that it should fall to the firefighters as they had the trucks andthe personnel to do the job, and the ambulance officers became pri-marily responsible for setting priorities on victim release and preparingthe patient for transport. This became law in 1990 when the firebrigades were given prime responsibility for RAR wherever they had anurban service.

In the early 1990s Len Watson of London and Robert Walmsley ofThe Netherlands, who had written books on the subject, were invitedto Australia to lecture on their techniques at Lytton, and Ian Amesattended. Ian says: ‘From that I learnt techniques I had never donebefore, including heavy rescue stuff like buses and old fire trucks, andthe latest about cars.’ Because of his expertise, Ian was tasked withrunning a one-day ‘half theory and half practical’ course on RAR for upto 200 fire service personnel. It barely scratched the surface of what wasrequired. In 1993 the impetus toward proficiency gained momentumand again Ian was at the forefront.

We got an expert panel together—firies, ambos and SES—and wecreated the Bureau of Emergency Services Road Accident RescueCourse. From that we developed a 40-hour, five-day course whichis still going today. With a specially selected team of instructors,I proceeded to teach all over the region, and for the last three yearsevery recruit has done the course as well.

Today Ian Ames wears a ‘second hat’ as the RAR projects officer,keeping an eye on developments around the world and in Australia.There has been a tremendous increase in equipment available to all sta-tions, including the auxiliaries, with most composite pumpers carryinghydraulic gear. And the world of RAR has extended to conductingcompetitions. Ian entered his own crew from Mt Gravatt station andafter some hard-learnt lessons on gamesmanship has taken out manytitles. He recalls: ‘At first we got our arses kicked and it was a bitter pill

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to swallow. We were beaten by auxiliaries and everyone.’ Now the creware highly trained and motivated. They have won the State champion-ship for two years and also came second in Australia. There are variouscategories of competition. Ian describes some of them:

The ‘unlimited’ category involves everything you carry on a firetruck and you have 25 minutes to solve the rescue problem. A newcategory is called ‘rapid intervention’, where you have half thetime and it’s a bit of bash and crash and rip and tear. There is alsoa team leader event and I have won that for the last two years andcame second in Australia. The team consists of the fire crew andan ambo. If you win the national you get to go overseas. We wentto the competition in Melbourne, had it tough and didn’t place.But Mareeba did very well and we were neck and neck with them.In the international contest they won one of the events.

The equipment mostly used by the QFRS is called Holmatro; it isused worldwide. The techniques are always changing. Ian says: ‘Cars havea lot more safety gear now and have pre-tensioned seat belts, air bags,windscreens holding up roofs, intrusion bars and so on.’ An air bag canbreak a firie’s neck if it deploys, so if work has to be carried out a spikedbar is placed across the bag to deflate it in case it deploys without warning.

At the accident scene the first requirement is to make sure that nofurther damage or loss of life occurs. When the fire crew arrive at thescene, normally the truck moves into a position called ‘fend off ’ where,with lights flashing, it is used as a ‘hard barrier’ to protect the crew andthe crash victims from any vehicle careering into the area. The crew setabout removing hazards in the immediate vicinity, including electricalwires. A line of Case 1 hose and a dry powder extinguisher are placedready for use in the event of a fire breaking out. The battery leads on thecrashed car are disconnected to reduce the chance of its catching fire.The station officer does a quick 360-degree recce and checks thevictims. If an ambulance is not yet present two of the crew will beginbasic first aid, but usually it’s the ambulance officers who decide thepriority for extrication. Deceased people are covered with a blanket ortarpaulin and left in situ. The station officer decides on the method ofrescue, telling the ambos what he intends to do, then briefs the fire

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crew, who in the meantime will have stabilised the car using woodenchocks they carry on their truck for that purpose.

The number one and number three usually set up an equipmentholding area on a tarpaulin to keep the hydraulic gear clean; everyoneknows where it is. Basic ‘glass work’ is then undertaken to protect eachperson in the car. Windows may be removed by cutting them out orbreaking them with special tools, all the time protecting the patientfrom debris. The ambulance officers will at the same time be stabilisingthe person for removal from the wreck. Ian Ames says: ‘Then the nittygritty to release the load off the patient begins.’

There are three tasks the firies concentrate on. The first is to gainaccess to the vehicle for resuscitation purposes. The second is to removethe load from the patient (called ‘disentangling’). This might involve‘a dash roll, a side flap down, a B pillar rip’—or whatever needs to bedone. The third task is to open the car sufficiently to get the person outsafely and without further injury.

The power tools used can cut through a door pillar in seconds. I onceremoved the whole roof from a training wreck on the recruit course inunder a minute. Some tools are better for cutting, others spread doorsapart, and a ram device can lift up loads such as dashboards.

Once the fire crew and ambulance officers have removed all the livevictims, if there is a fatality the firies then have to wait until the policeAccident Investigation Squad complete their sudden-death investigation.That can be a frustrating time as it can take hours, depending upon thecircumstances. Once that is complete, the deceased is removed andthe final cleanup can begin. The firies then wait until a tow truck hasremoved the wreck. Ian Ames recalls a time when they decided to returnto their station before the tow truck driver had completed his job.

We left before the towie had finished and then got recalled to a caron fire halfway up a tilt tray. It was our bloke. As he was yankingthe car onto the tray, a severed fuel line had leaked. When the carwas on the 45-degree angle, the fuel spilt out and sparks from thedragging metal ignited it. So now we always wait.

An accident scene is never a safe place. Some people seem to drivearound with their eyes closed or are so busy ‘rubbernecking’ that they

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fail to see the warning signs and create even more strife. Ian’s crew wereworking at a job on the Gateway Arterial, where a semi-trailer had hitthe flyover wall, when they saw a car approaching way too fast.

We were standing around and up quite high. All our warning signsand witch’s hats were out. This car came flying around the cornerand we thought he wouldn’t stop. He cleaned up all of our signs,went sideways, missed the fire truck by a coat of paint and skiddedto a stop pointing the wrong way. Fearing that we were about toget killed, we’d all jumped off the roadway and rolled down theembankment.

Although it is now a competition category, rapid intervention is notnormally the way the fire crews work. It is actually a case of taking iteasy, preventing further trauma and injury and ensuring that patients arestabilised and won’t react badly when the pressure from being trappedis released—which can cause a toxic reaction if preparations are not inplace. Wayne McLennan says: ‘Sometimes people can be trapped forquite a while, and if a chopper is coming we wait until the last minuteto avoid the impact of release.’ But now and then circumstances meanthat the victims have to be got out quickly. Ian Ames recalls a particularsmash when time was critical:

A garbage truck had hit a power pole, bounced off and trapped thedriver. The pole he hit had three layers of power lines: 420 volts,11 000 volts and 33 000 volts. The 33 000 volt line was tangled upin a Norfolk pine and it was arcing and going ‘zzzz’ and had blueflames shooting everywhere. We were waiting until Energex de-energised the system, but they said to hurry because the powermight come back on and they couldn’t prevent it. We went cut,cut, cut and had the driver out quick smart! It’s one of the fewrapid interventions we have done.

Ray Moore was working in Townsville one night and went to a head-on smash between a small car and a 4WD. The car was completely cavedin, on top of two seriously injured young men. Ray says:

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We started cutting the car away from them but the ambos said,after we’d started, that we had 30 seconds or we’d lose them. Wegot them out in a lot of pain, because we couldn’t use our normalprocedures. It was horrific for everyone. One bloke recoveredokay; the other did physically—but not mentally.

The distance to travel to a smash is a recurring problem: it can some-times take an hour or more to reach an accident scene. As the onset ofshock can be a killer for MVA victims, Rockhampton crews have used ahelicopter fitted with a rapid intervention kit in order to deal witha crash more quickly. Tragically, one of the worst rescues the firies havedone in this area involved the same chopper, which crashed in dense fogduring an aerial medevac. Dave Semple recalls:

We had to do a ground search, because the fog was really thick andyou couldn’t see anything. Some people went within twentymetres of the site and didn’t see it. When we finally saw the prangit was awful: we knew the paramedics. We had to stay with thewreck and the bodies in it, all night. We just kept watch on it incase it went up—with fuel, batteries and so on. The SES weresetting up lights but there was nothing we could do until first light.One of the ambos broke down when he found out who wasmanning the chopper.

A large petrol tanker fire is a major event. Firecom’s automaticresponse is to send at least three pumps to provide enough water toproduce foam to extinguish the fire. If there is no ready water supply,the crews will request water support. Barry Salway explains theapproach used in Nambour:

We work in pretty close with two trucking companies who havebulk water tanks which we utilise, when we go to an incident likethat, to supplement the foam on board our appliances. We eithercontact Firecom or the water carters ourselves, because there areno water supplies along the road here.

One of the biggest lifts a firefighter can get after attending a bad MVAis the gratitude of the survivors. Ian Ames says: ‘The work is great and

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saving people gives the biggest buzz. And making contact with peopleand calming them down. Many a bloody arm has reached out to me toshake my hand.’ Station Officer Pat Hopper agrees. He was standing inhis local butcher shop when a woman smiled and said that she was sureshe knew him, then blurted out: ‘Oh yes, you cut me out of a car lastyear.’

Survivors are one thing, but next of kin can complicate matters.Thanks to mobile phones, no longer is it always the case that a policeofficer knocks on the front door to tell a relative that a loved one hasbeen injured or killed in a car accident. Kev Anderson was on shift lateone afternoon just before Christmas when an RAR call came in. Thefirst response unit was Wulguru station from Townsville and Kev’s crewfrom South Townsville were backing up. Someone going past hadrecognised the crashed vehicle and rung the family that owned it, usinga mobile phone. Kev recalls:

The 4WD had rolled and was on its side. The lady driver wasdeceased and was in the middle of the road. The first crew hadcovered the body, but traffic was still going past. We put somebarriers up so people couldn’t see the body, but in hindsight weshould have covered the vehicle as well. Then the police andcoroner turned up. The traffic had been stopped so the publiccouldn’t see the body removal. We were just about to remove thedeceased when a car started coming up the side of the road, alongthe grass verge. It was the husband of the woman and he had thekids in the car. One of the young police girls stopped him fromcoming any further. It was terrible.

Wayne McLennan, who often works with Kev Anderson, has been toat least three accidents where next of kin have turned up at the crashscene looking for their relatives. He says: ‘Bodies in house fires areusually hidden inside. But with MVAs they’re out in the open andeveryone can see what’s going on. It’s a public arena.’ Wayne citesanother incident similar to Kev Anderson’s. His crew had respondedout of Garbutt station. A car was split in half after hitting a tree. Onevictim was almost dead, but another girl was okay and had used hermobile phone to call home. The firies had to do a rapid intervention

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because the injuries were life threatening. They had just got one victimout when the scene became a worse nightmare as a hysterical motherarrived asking where her daughter was. Wayne remarks: ‘You can some-times see them coming, but other times they sneak up on you. It’s apolice responsibility but at a crash scene it’s hard to watch everything.’

The body of a dead victim is left in the vehicle unless it is impedingthe rescue work, in which case the firies will remove it. It’s the firies’call. The police are in overall command but they rarely if ever questiona station officer’s decision. At fatal accidents the work can be gruesomeand not for the fainthearted. Ian Ames recalls one terrible accident:

Three concrete pylons fell on a bloke after a crash—he took threebig hits between the shoulders and waist. His entire bodily contentsfrom his waist to his shoulders came out through a hole in his armand sprayed the area with minced meat and blood. We had to usetwo big cranes to get the pylons off. After about three hours we wentin wearing disposable overalls. We had to peel him off the pylonsbecause he had stuck to them by that time owing to the heat.

Ian has had his share of fatal accidents and recalls one bad periodwhen he had ‘30 fatals in eighteen months’. His worst accident was theBoondall bus crash on 24 October 1994, where there were twelve fatal-ities and ten trapped victims out of a busload of 51. In a horrificaccident, especially one like this, and particularly if a probationary fire-fighter is in the crew, the station officer and other experienced firieskeep a weather eye on anyone who looks as if they aren’t handling itwell. But sometimes the circumstances can pretty well overwhelmeveryone in attendance. ‘A dickhead in a semi-trailer, who’d been drink-ing, was running red lights at night and “took out” a family; a womanwas killed, along with her unborn baby and a three-year-old child.’1

In small towns the firies may very well know the victims and that canmake their job even tougher than it already is. Neil Smith of Caloundrawent to one dreadful accident at which he knew all the victims:

The three brothers were coming into town and this dog-trailercame loose from the back of a truck, hit their Ford Fairlane andtook the top off it. It took the three guys’ heads right off their

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shoulders. That was especially bloody sad because it took threefathers away from their families—who I also knew. It wasn’t theirfault; it was just a useless death. And given another second eitherway, the trailer would have run off into the bush and they wouldhave survived.

Vince Hinder adds:

I have been to a hell of a lot more car accidents in the past fewyears than ever before and I think people imagine air bags willtotally protect them—and they won’t. I have been to accidentswhere the bags have deployed but the people are dead. If you get ahard enough hit they won’t save you. Maybe it is a false sense ofsecurity.

RAR work carries with it a fair amount of trauma, which can easilybe transferred to others. Neil Smith has been to some bad high-speedprangs. He told me about a post-accident debriefing held after a youngfirie had had a tough time at a very serious accident at which severedlimbs were involved.

We eventually got him talking about it, and when we got back tothe station the first thing we did was sit down with a cup of tea andhave an informal debrief. It’s the only way to go—informally. Itgets it off their chest. The other thing we’ve really got to be con-cerned about is that we don’t take the trauma home to our wives.If we don’t talk about it here we take it home and unload it there,and it can send the wives off the hill.

Peer support, debriefing and counselling are all offered to assist fire-fighters in dealing with trauma and the stress of the job, especially whena ‘bad job’ has occurred. But Greg Scarlett believes many men shy awayfrom having counselling because they think it shows weakness.Regardless, firies tend to agree that the informal debriefing takes care ofmost situations. Pat Scanlan is one station officer who asks his crew howthey are going while they are still out at a rescue, and if they are troubledhe moves them to another job at the scene.

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Barry Salway tries to detach himself from the trauma and the horror.He tells himself that it’s a job that has to be done and someone has todo it. The firies are highly trained and they do the work well, but it doesimpact on them and eventually some simply have to ask for otherduties, or regretfully leave the QFRS, because they can’t stomach anymore of the carnage on our roads.

Thankfully, not all MVAs are fatalities and occasionally somethingwill happen that makes people laugh or at least brings a wry smile totheir face. One day John Watson and his crew responded to a singlevehicle MVA about 25 kilometres outside Maryborough. John was astation officer at the time.

A bloke had run into a tree. It was a rollover and he was still in thecar. We could see from a distance that it was a mess. As we walkedtoward the smash, it looked like whoever was inside had justexploded, such was the mess inside and all over the windows. Butin fact he’d been catering for a wedding or something and had potsof spaghetti bolognese in the car, and the whole car was bathed inspaghetti and sauce. He wasn’t killed but during the rollover hehad got one of his legs trapped. We spent almost an hour trying toget the poor bugger out, covered in spaghetti sauce.

On another occasion, John was not working with a crew but drivingup to Bundaberg in his QFRS company car, when a long line of trafficindicated a bad smash ahead. He drove up the side of the road to seewhat assistance he could offer.

A bloke in a sports sedan had run into the back of a flatbed trucktrailer. I thought he must be dead, because it had taken the lid rightoff his car. I looked in underneath and there he was, sitting there—he was alive. He must have just leant down as he went under theback of the truck. He had a few injuries like a busted arm and a bit ofblood was spread around. He was sitting there groaning—like peopledo in a bad accident. The firies were trying to get him out, but duringthis painful extrication his mobile phone rang. Well, with his goodarm he answered the phone and chatted for about five minutes.Then he said, ‘No, no, I am not going to make it’, and hung up.

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I wrote an article about it for the Fire Life magazine and called itafter the Telstra mobile ad on TV, ‘Hello Chucky’. I thought hewas so dedicated—here he was with internal injuries and a brokenarm, and he still answered the phone!

Other types of rescue

Hanging off the side of a cliff or a building or being lowered down awell is not everyone’s idea of fun. But for firies it’s often necessary, andall QFRS firefighting personnel, from regional commissioners down,undergo vertical rescue training. Station Officer Bob Buckley is 55 yearsyoung but admits: ‘At my age, after that initial push off from the build-ing, it sure gets your heart pumping. It’s physically hard moving the“bodies” [80-kilogram training dummies] with poor leverage, but Imust be prepared to train although I’m not likely to do this work as astation officer.’

Probationary firefighter Marcus Maffey had done rappelling andclimbing before joining the QFRS and was taken on a job outsideIngham because of his experience. A recreational walker and his matehad fallen off the side of Mt Fox while trying to find the wreck of atractor. Marcus described the cliff gradient as ‘a good place to go if youwanted to suicide’. An ambulance crew were already in attendance, butthey couldn’t retrieve the men. Marcus belayed down to the firstpatient, who was lying with broken limbs on a patch of lantana bush andcould easily have dropped another 300 metres.

We had to set up a lowering system and lower stuff down. We gotthe patient in a stretcher and had six people on safety lines tosecure him, and eventually we winched him out. Took about threeand a half hours in total. Some Level 2 vertical rescue guys arrivedjust as the second patient was being winched out. They might wellhave been pissed off ! But it was good for us to be able to do itwithout outside help.

Rescues can take place anywhere and at any time. Ray Eustaceattended an unusual one when he was a sub-station officer (a junior

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station officer in the days of Fire Brigade Boards) and working out ofIpswich. A new pipeline less than a metre in diameter was being put in,going through Karana Downs, and over the weekend water had got intoit. Ray remembers the scene vividly:

Two blokes had crawled in with a pump and had asphyxiatedthemselves. A worker with a backhoe had found them. We went inwith BA and we could only just squeeze inside. I got to the firstbloke and dragged him back about 30 metres. One of my firiesbecame claustrophobic in the cramped pipeline, so I had to goback in and get the next one. I dragged him out too but he wasdead. The one we saved ended up in a mental hospital with braindamage.

Every month or so a story appears on television showing a child withhis finger or toe caught in something. The child is upset, the parents areoften distraught and the fire crew have to extract the victim withoutdamage. Sometimes it’s a major job. The Caloundra crew were calledone day to help a three-year-old boy who was trapped with his wholeleg down a drainpipe. Greg Scarlett was there.

We actually had to jackhammer him out. It took us an hour and ahalf with the tool only an inch away from his leg. The kid wasscreaming and carrying on. It was a real scary thing because theambulance crew were concerned about his blood circulation andthought he might end up losing his leg. In the end, he got out ofit with just a little scratch. But the operation was real delicate [as itcan be with a jackhammer]—imagine slipping up with a jack-hammer so close to a femoral artery!

Swift-water rescue can be especially dramatic. Station Officer NeilLesmond recalls a flood that rose near Townsville after torrential rainhad been falling for several days.

We were called to an MVA where a ute had been swept off thehighway south of the city about 8.00 a.m. By the time we got therethe area of water was probably 2 kilometres wide. There was about

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a metre of very swiftly flowing water running over the road. Theute had been swept into a creek, but we didn’t know the creek wasthere because we were looking at a vast expanse of very fast, brownmuddy water coming across the flats. All we could see were fourpeople sitting on the roof of the ute, which was almost totallycovered in water. Two of the people were council workers who hadgot the occupants out of the ute. The lady passenger now refusedto get off the vehicle because she couldn’t swim and her husbandalso refused to leave her.

After much to do, we set up rescue lines and got one of the fire-fighters, Frank McGuinness, out in a harness to the ute and hesettled everybody down and we discussed a plan of attack fromthere. (A truckie had pulled up and had got a length of rope off histruck, tied it to his bullbar and thrown it out to the ute, but withthe running stream it was about a metre short. So Frank used thatas best he could and then lunged out and let the current take himto the ute.)

The lady couldn’t swim and my concern was that if we put herin a harness and dragged her back from the ute she was going to gounderwater for sure, because it was flowing so swiftly, and she’dpanic. However, the Townsville rescue chopper was in the air, sowe called it in and they winched down a crewie, put her into aharness and winched her up into the chopper.

The dilemma facing the firefighters now was to try and get the otherthree people, one of whom was an elderly man, back through a ragingtorrent in which a lot of debris was coming down the creekline. Thefiries had no idea what was under the muddy water in the form of logsor posts and the like. But they did know that, when they started haulingthem back with a line, there was a good chance of the people goingunderwater for a short time—until the speed of the hauling was enoughfor them to ‘plane’ over the surface.

Neil Lesmond continues:

Frank McGuinness gave the harness to the elderly gentlemanfirst—he was quite happy to try it, it was probably only 10 metresfrom where we were standing in the water. He, and one of the

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council workers after him, tried to come in on their backs andpretty much they did, but they ended up being submerged for thefirst 3 or 4 metres because of the swift current. We knew it wasgoing to happen and we warned them about going under. Theydid, but they were fine. The old bloke had a tough time, though,because we dragged him straight into a tree!

The other council worker, who was quite a fit young blokeswam back. I told him to go and warm up in our truck, and a bitlater I found him standing beside me again in chest-deep water.I said, ‘What are you doing?’, and he replied: ‘The bloody airconditioner was on in your truck and I’m freezing. It’s warmerhere in the water!’ Finally we got Frank out.

Seven hours later all the water had gone and there was the carsitting against a fence. If that hadn’t been there the people wouldhave ended up further downstream.

As a result of this sterling effort, the fire crew were awarded a ChiefCommissioner’s Commendation.

In early April 2000, prolonged and heavy cyclonic rain caused a rockand mudslide on the side of Castle Hill in Townsville. The threat tolife and property was high and the situation was made extremely danger-ous when an enormous granite boulder began teetering above somehouses and could easily have rolled all the way down to the prom-enade alongside the bay. Station Officer Mick O’Neill and Fire-fighter Warren Evans, who are trained in urban search and recsue,were called out to ‘a bit of mud in the driveway’. Mick says there werepeople running back down the hill yelling ‘Help, help, help, we needyou’. Then he could see it—an enormous raging torrent of brownmud coming down the hill. He said he was the most scared he hasever been. ‘Boulders, logs and trees were whizzing past at a greatrate of knots. How nobody was seriously injured or killed was amystery.’2

The threat of the runaway boulder was removed after geological en-gineers and the counter-disaster crews worked out that they could shoreup the huge boulder with concrete. It was impossible to break it up orblow it up, so they stabilised it where it had stopped on its path downthe hill.

112 RESCUE


But not everything goes to plan, as Station Officer Kev Andersonfound when his USAR team arrived later, when the entire area wascovered in deep brown mud. Both Kev and fellow station officer MickQuinn are USAR-trained. Wearing their bright rescue overalls, theybegan doing a house-to-house search for trapped persons.

The mud was over our knees. Mick had climbed over a fence andas I was climbing over I heard a splashing noise. There were stilltorrents coming down the hill and I looked around. All I could seeof Mick was his shoulders and head sticking out of the muddywater. I thought he’d been hit by a rock and knocked down, but hewas in a swimming pool. He’d gone in the deep end—you justcouldn’t see it. My biggest fear was that some little old lady wouldsee all this and think: ‘These are the professionals that are going tobe saving me!’3

Occasionally firefighters will be called to assist the police in dealingwith suicide attempts like self-immolation or cases where a dwelling islikely to be torched or blown up. Senior Firefighter Greg Scarlett andhis crew were called to Aroona on the Sunshine Coast and asked tostand by. A man in a house was threatening to set fire to himself. Policenegotiators were talking to the man, who had doused himself withpetrol.

We had to basically stay out of the way but also be available incase he went ahead with it. He had locked himself behind asecurity door in the house. We were there for quite some timeand one minute he’d be screaming and the next minute he’dbe sad. It was a bad situation; the poor guy was having a hardtime. He didn’t want the fire brigade or anything in here so wegave the police, who had someone hidden up the side of thehouse beside the front door, a big 9-kilogram dry chemicalextinguisher.

The plan was that if the man set fire to himself, the policeman wouldcharge in through the door and quickly douse him with the dry powder.A 9-kilogram extinguisher gives off a lot of powder and normally it only

RESCUE 113


takes one or two quick squirts—less than a quarter of the tank—to do ajob like this. Greg Scarlett thought it was a good plan.

Anyhow, time went on and he actually did light himself up. In asplit second the policeman just let fly with the extinguisher. Hewould have put him out pretty quick, I imagine, because the manhad been walking around for a while and the fuel had been vapor-ising and evaporating for a couple of hours. If he had lit up straightaway it might have been a problem. So thankfully he didn’t dohimself much damage. But the police officer emptied the whole ofthe 9-kilogram extinguisher in the house.

At this point the fire crew didn’t know if the man was on fire or if thehouse was burning, so they entered with a charged line. There was somuch dry powder in the air that it was difficult to see—the interior wasblanketed in a white fog. Scarlett and his number one, Greg Loggener,were in BA sets and began searching the house, which had many closeddoors. ‘Not knowing where the man was and whether he was armed,’Scarlett says, ‘we started clearing the rooms, just like in the movies.’They were taking quite a risk. Scarlett continues:

The police officer kept coming along and choking because hedidn’t have BA. He would come in for a bit, choke, go out,cough his guts up and then come back in. We finally got to thesecond last room and opened it up. The man started screamingand he had his arms up and he was going to charge and attack us.So I said to Loggie: ‘Water! Hit him!’ Loggie pulled the triggeron this fully-charged hose line—which has got something like3000 kpa on it—on jet. He hit him fair in the chest and put himthrough the air and dropped him on his butt that quick that theguy never knew what hit him. By this stage the copper was onhis hands and knees near the door and he just said: ‘Good shot!’So it ended up being quite funny because we shot the guy withwater.

One of the most hazardous tasks for firies is cleaning up a chemicalspill or having to work in an area where toxic gas has been set loose.

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To protect them the crews have Level 1 and Level 2 suits which theywear with their BA sets. There is also a Level 3 suit, which is fullyenclosed and has its own air supply. A firie wearing one resembles aNASA space walker. Level 3 suits are only held in certain locations asthey are very expensive and require specialist maintenance.

Ken Besgrove is a firie in Townsville and has been to a few chemicalincidents. ‘Initially you’re apprehensive, but the biggest thing is havingfaith in your gear. A Level 3 suit will protect you, it has positive venti-lation; but you still have to be careful and not snag it!’ The firefightersundergo intensive training for these operations and then sit down withtheir station officer and do a DUCOT test covering ‘Description, Use,Construction, Operation, Testing and safety overall’. They give a five orten minute talk on the equipment they will be using.

Station Officer Fred Heiniger works out of Nambour station and hasdone some chemical jobs—‘mainly 44-gallon drums leaking stuff ’. BobBuckley describes the work as ‘a slow, tedious, protracted methodicaljob that disrupts life for many others’. Dealing with incidents is adrawn-out process because the firefighters have got to be really sure ofwhat they’re handling and not cause a chemical reaction with thecleanup materials that could endanger themselves and others. RussellMayne says: ‘If you get a tanker that rolls over you’ve got to go throughthe whole process and check all the United Nations numbers.’ The UNnumbers are shown on the side and end of all chemical containers andtankers and signify the exact composition of the substance carried.Firecom has the data on its computers and a detailed description of therequired treatment and handling can be passed on to the crews. Thereare literally thousands of UN numbers matching the chemicals in usetoday.

Occasionally firefighters are called on to rescue animals, and therescue may require lateral thinking and ingenuity. Kev Anderson onceused a link stick (a tool for de-energising a power line) to save a peewee(magpie lark) hanging from a nest by some string in which it wascaught. The crew strapped scissors to the pole and with a length of linewere able to close up the scissors and cut the string, freeing the bird. Kevrecalls: ‘What tickled us was that the woman who called us thought itwas a tool we used just for saving birds!’

On another occasion Ray Eustace was lowered down a very deep old

RESCUE 115


mine shaft near Ipswich to effect a rescue. A man had been runningthrough a paddock with his dog, which had fallen down the shaft. AndWayne McLennan is one of many firies who have saved cats. He laughs:‘The last cat I rescued—after a fair bit of trouble—bolted, never to beseen again.’

116 RESCUE


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN URBAN FIREFIGHTER

Many people believe that when the bells aren’t ringing, firefighters sitaround all day and play cards or pool. Nothing could be further fromthe truth. I did several shifts in the regional centres to get a feel for a dayin the life of a firefighter. No two days or nights were ever the same. AsNeil Smith says, ‘There are only two constants in firefighting work, youget in at eight and leave at six . . .’

Each station carries a diary in which outstanding work, core skillstraining and the inspection program is recorded. The shift stationofficer checks the diary first thing in the morning so the work day(or night) can be adjusted as required. Usually, an hour and a half perday is allocated for complete maintenance checks. Another hour isneeded to have the station clean and tidy. Then there are certaininspections that each shift has to conduct per month. The station

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CHAPTER 8


officer and crew also undertake a regular skills maintenance programfor training.

In a typical one-pump or one-fire tender station, a shift consists ofa station officer and three firefighters. This is known simply as ‘one andthree’ or an officer and three firefighters—a driver/pump operator, abranch man and a back-up to the branch man. In larger city fire stationslike Roma Street in Brisbane shifts comprise eleven men—a pump of oneand three, a telescopic aerial pump (TAP) of one and three, and a turntableladder (TTL) of one and two. A chemical Hazmat vehicle with an officerand one firefighter is also stationed but is not part of the Roma Street shift.

The station officers in Roma Street also manage the shift manningfor the area within the Brisbane North Region. They ensure that everypump in their area is fully staffed at the start of a working shift byjuggling the roster and calling in people if required (this is also knownas a ‘call back’). In this situation a firefighter from an off-going shiftstays on at the station until the replacement arrives.

Roma Street, Brisbane—B Shift

Roma Street is a busy station. The day I arrived any notions of sittingaround playing cards were quickly put to rest.

Time: 0801 hours Almost as soon as the names have been read outand firies start their work around Roma Street station, the bells go andPump 902 is turned out to attend a fire alarm at Rydges Hotel in theBrisbane Southbank area. The crew put on their overtrousers and topboots, grab their turnout coats and are seated in the vehicle within60 seconds. The automatic doors open and driver Tim Watkins has thelarge red truck nosing out into the peak hour traffic fifteen seconds later.Even though the hotel is only a couple of kilometres from the station,negotiating the heavy morning traffic costs valuable time. It seems asthough some car drivers don’t hear our siren and air horn, nor see theflashing red lights and blinking headlights, as they sit in a traffic lanethat would offer a clear path for our vehicle. The firefighters are unper-turbed; they know they are not going to get to the fire any quicker bygetting worked up. The traffic soon parts as we make our way through

118 A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN URBAN FIREFIGHTER


intersections—sometimes across traffic islands—but stopping at redlights as we have to do by law. Behind us is the telescopic aerial pumptruck that has also been turned out as part of the response procedure foran automatic alarm at a high rise building.

After four minutes Pump 902 pulls up in front of the hotel and weare met by the building supervisor and duty officer. A quick look at thealarm panel follows, then we move to the room where the alarm hadbeen activated. It’s a double room with several young male occupants.One of them had had a very hot shower and had left the screen doorajar—a considerable amount of steam had wafted into the main roomand set off the smoke alarm. Acting Station Officer Peter Lalor chatsgoodnaturedly with the young men and we go back downstairs to resetthe alarm. A smoke alarm only requires a 2.7 per cent change in theatmosphere to be activated. It’s a common occurrence, but the fire-fighters all agree that it’s better to be safe than sorry. On our return toRoma Street the shift get back to their duties.

Time: 0900 hours We roll out of the station without lights and sirenson an administrative move to the now derelict Homestead Hotel atBoondall, where an examination is being conducted for a Level Twoqualification for Station Officer Wayne Halverson. Several pumps andan ET have been called out to act as the troops for this exercise, whichis conducted without a live fire.

The scenario for the test is a two-storey hotel; four in the morning,with a prevailing southeasterly wind; no staff on the premises but asecurity officer in attendance. Large volumes of smoke have been seencoming from both floors. Wayne will spend the next 90 minutes beingput well and truly through the hoops in a theoretical but still practicalsituation involving a working fire. The things he’ll be examined oninclude his competency in sizing up the situation and his tacticalmanagement of rescue, exposure of hazardous materials, fire contain-ment, extinguishment and overhaul—the latter being the cleaning upand scene preservation for investigation purposes. He will also beexamined closely on his overall safety procedures (especially with BA),crew safety and public safety management. His radio procedure will betested, as will his liaison with other agencies involved in the incident.

The roles of the security officer and police, gas and electricity

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN URBAN FIREFIGHTER 119


personnel are played as required by the examination board members,who are area directors from the Brisbane North Region. The fire truckcrews act as the deployed firefighters and roll out their hoses and doeverything except use water. They don BA kits and position themselveswhere they would be as if the fire was a real one. The demanding andthorough examination puts Wayne Halverson through the process hewould have to follow as a station officer at a multi-pump incident. Theexamination board members throw various contingencies and develop-ments at him as the practical examination continues. After 90 minutesthe crews are stood down. They make up the vehicles for return tostation, then have a quick cup of coffee and a chat before heading off.

The station diary had recorded that Pump 902 was dropping oil whenparked at Roma Street, so Station Officer Peter Lalor directs the driverto the QFRS garage to have the truck looked at. The mechanics therework on the 45-plus QFRS vehicles based in the Greater Brisbanemetropolitan area. After 45 minutes Pump 902, with a new oil filter, isback on station at Roma Street.

Lunch It is almost 1.00 p.m. and as we walk into the firies’ mess we aregreeted by Brian Hayes. ‘Haysee’, as everybody calls him, is a firefighterwith seventeen years experience. He takes it upon himself to organisethe messing for B Shift. They have a system in which everybody throwsin money for meals and Brian organises the tucker. The previous nighthe put on a roast and today our lunch is cold meat cuts and a hugesalad—all for $2.50. The meal is a casual, noisy affair, with variousconversations ranging across the three tables adjoining what the firiescall ‘Cinema 1’—the TV room, which has about ten recliner chairs inwhich firefighters can watch television or read a magazine. The messhas a very large commercial stove in the corner, a couple of microwavesand several large commercial drink machines which operate on anhonour system for payment.

After lunch some of the firefighters assist the BA training centre store-man to move cylinders of compressed air, while others tend to theirstation maintenance and cleaning duties. There is always something tobe done around the station or on the vehicles. There is an ongoing main-tenance program for all equipment and it has to be completed tomaintain proficiency on the fire ground and not place people at risk.



Time: 1530 hours The bells ring and we are off to an alarm at the enor-mous Queensland University complex at St Lucia. The university is theequivalent of a small town and special maps are provided for its build-ings and roads. Over 29 000 students and staff can be on campus at anyone time.

We are thundering down Sir Fred Schonnell Drive when Firecomadvises that the situation is now a ‘stop’ and that we are to return to thestation. Peter Lalor suggests that the alarm was triggered accidentallyand that the situation is under control. We return down CoronationDrive toward the city but when we are 500 metres from the stationanother call comes over the radio.

Time: 1545 hours We do a very smart right-hand turn and charge upPetrie Terrace, bound for the Gazebo Ramada Hotel. The duty managertakes us up to the floor where the alarm was activated and we find anembarrassed workman who has been refurbishing several rooms. Headmits that he failed to use sufficient water on his concrete cutter, andas a result the room and corridor are full of hot concrete dust. He alsofailed to have the alarms isolated while he was working. The stationofficer chats with him and reminds him to keep the rooms ventilatedand to use his tools in the correct manner. The tone of Peter Lalor’svoice is friendly but still displays authority, and the workman apologisesfor the inconvenience and promises to take more care. On our way backto Roma Street we are called out yet again, this time to a motor vehicleaccident.

Time: 1600 hours Firecom advises that there is a four-vehicle MVA onCaptain Cook Bridge. It’s only a kilometre from where we are and, withsirens and lights on, we head to the scene. With peak hour building up,it has to be the worst possible time for an MVA on a bridge that formspart of the Southeast Freeway. We drive through dense traffic andmanage to get into a fend-off position just in front of the four vehicles,which are all in line, indicating a massive nose-to-tail pile-up. Luckilyno one is seriously hurt except for two people who are showing signs ofwhiplash, one of them a woman who also has the early signs of shock.Station Officer Lalor quickly details the number one and number threeto put out warning signs, then tells Firecom what has occurred and



requests ambulance and police attendance. Several tow trucks appearbefore long and position themselves on the road behind the smashedcars and out of the way. The traffic is chaotic, as four lanes are nowcompressed into two for safety reasons. A couple of the firefighters arequickly disconnecting the cars’ batteries to avoid sparks and a possibleflare up of spilt petrol. Three of the vehicles are going to have to betowed away, as their radiators have been pierced and back ends knockedawry.

Thirty minutes later an ambulance arrives after somehow negotiatingthe jammed traffic. The woman showing signs of shock and whiplash isquickly tended to. After an hour and Peter Lalor’s numerous calls toFirecom about police attendance, the authorities decide to clear themotorway, as traffic has gridlocked in the city and backed up as far asToowong, about seven kilometres away. Just as the first tow truck hasloaded a wrecked car and started to drive away, a lone motorcycle police-man arrives and asks what has happened. He resigns himself to the factthat it is all too late. Everyone departs the scene, leaving Brisbane’ssouthbound traffic in utter chaos.

Just as we clamber back aboard our truck, two vehicles on the otherside of the freeway have an end-to-end collision—probably as a resultof ‘rubbernecking’, according to Tim Watkins. He drives the truck backalong the freeway and once again we are bound for the station. We seethe motorcycle cop heading off toward the two halted vehicles,salvaging something out of his trip down the clogged arterial.

Time: 1700 hours Firecom is advised that we are back at Roma Streetand the crew have a cup of coffee while Peter Lalor attends to his paper-work and completes reports for three incidents on the trot. Then thecrew clean up the firies’ mess, ready to hand over to the next shift at6.00 p.m. All the cups, dishes and pans are washed and put away and thefloor is swept. These men would gladden their mothers’ hearts. By1800 hours the incoming A Shift men are on deck, ready to be briefed ontheir individual responsibilities for the night. Alan Beauchamp, RomaStreet’s senior station officer, whistles into the PA system and thechangeover takes place. The B Shift men disperse to the car park,knowing they have 24 hours before they start night shift. They have beenon their feet almost the entire day, apart from 40 minutes for lunch.



Night shift

Before working the night shift I try to have a nap at home to be fresh forthe job ahead, but I find it impossible to get to sleep. So I arrive a littleweary for the 6.00 p.m. start and am surprised to find almost everyoneis either in the mess or in the dormitory making up their bunk. I’m toldthat the firefighters actually go to bed during a night shift—not until11.00 p.m. at Roma Street—but they are still able to turnout within60 seconds. This, I say, I would have to see to believe.

Peter Lalor and Alan Beauchamp are calling firefighters in to make upthe numbers for a few stations in the area that are short-staffed, includ-ing Roma Street. A firefighter who normally works at Petrie stationagrees to come in to Roma Street and the shift assemble for their brief-ing. Places are allocated on the pumps and once again I will be riding inPump 902 with Peter Lalor, driver and pump operator Tim Watkins andfirefighter Paul Goopy as number one, with Rob Brady from Petriestation as number three.

Rob had been a firefighter for five years, as had his wife LisetteDeGray. They were the only married firefighter couple on permanentduty in the QFRS at the time. Asked if they had any kids, Rob smiledwryly and said they were too busy. Both were on B Shift but Lisetteworked out of Caboolture station in the northern part of Brisbane NorthRegion. She had previously worked at Roma Street and was regardedhighly by the men there. A sales rep when she joined the QFRS, she’dhad to overcome a great deal of ‘male culture’ when she first started firework. This is not surprising, as there were no female firefighters in theQFRS until about that time.1

Firefighting is still a male-dominated occupation, again not surpris-ingly as the work is physically demanding and dangerous. That is not tosay that a woman can’t do the job, but the physical requirements can beextremely onerous—for example, the need to carry heavy equipment, orpossibly a workmate’s inert body, down a ladder.

Peter Lalor informs the shift that first aid training will take place inthe upstairs lecture room after dinner. The news is not greeted with anygreat delight, but every six months all firefighters must demonstratetheir competency in a wide range of skills in order to maintain theirstanding.



We also hear that a gas leak in the heart of Brisbane that closed offseveral streets has required the changeover of vehicles and personnel tobe extended into the first half-hour of the night shift. Several firefightersfrom the previous shift have been treated for exposure to freon gas—a refrigerant that, while non-toxic, can be dangerous in confined spaces.

Time: 1900 hours The crew of Pump 902 are turned out to an auto-matic alarm at an inner-city building. The security staff there appear tobe totally unfamiliar with the workings of the alarm system, and frus-tration at this ineptitude shows on Paul Goopy’s face as he and PeterLalor attempt to discover where the possible fire could be located.Manuals and emergency listings are referred to and all of them are outof date; the security staff are unfamiliar with the contents. A search ofthe building is made, senior security people are called on the phone, asare maintenance people—all with no result. Peter is convinced that it’sa faulty alarm circuit and finally decides to return to Roma Street after45 minutes of fruitless effort. He tells me that it’s uncommon in thattype of situation and that the day shift will be paying the building andsecurity people a visit to rectify matters.

Time: 2150 hours While the firies are at their training session, Firecomadvises that an automatic alarm has been triggered at Kelvin GroveTeachers College, and both Pump 902 and TAP 402 are on their waywithin a minute of the alarm being triggered. The large trucks workhard to climb the steep hills up to the college and we are directed to thebuilding in question by security staff on the roadway. Peter reports at2155 hours to Firecom that we arrived and that no smoke is visible. Wego down a series of outside stairs of a large cafeteria to find that a cleanerin the huge kitchen area has been using a high pressure hot water hoseto scrub and clean the floors. Once again an automatic alarm was acti-vated by excessive amounts of steam, because the cleaner didn’tventilate the area prior to starting work. Once again Peter has a quietword with the offender, and we return to the first aid refresher trainingat Roma Street.

Time: 2245 hours Another automatic alarm call takes us to a high riseapartment building just off Coronation Drive. A male occupant guides



us to the third floor where the alarm has gone off. He says there is noapparent fire but plenty of smoke on that floor. We exit the lift and enterApartment 301, which is smoky indeed. The cause of the smoke, and ofgreat embarrassment to the female occupant, is two pieces of steak leftto char on an electric grill. The room is quickly ventilated and thealarms are reset by Paul Goopy.

The pumps are back at Roma Street just after midnight. As we returnto the station Peter Lalor calls in to Firecom and we notice that the voiceon the other end of the radio belongs to Dean Baird. Peter tells him thatwe don’t want to be called again that night. Dean laughs and says thathe won’t call until 3.00 a.m. All the fire crews are in bed, trying to getto sleep, by midnight. I find my way to my bunk and lie there wonder-ing if sleep will come. Finally, I wake up with a start.

Time: 0305 hours The lights have come on in the dormitory and thebells are ringing. I had laid out my gear so that I could get into it quickly.Within 60 seconds we’re on our way, but I’m worried about having mykit on correctly. Brian Edmonds once related a story about a firie turn-ing up to an early morning fire without his pants on. I am impressedwith the speed of the turnout; Tim Watkins admits later that the fire-fighters only doze lightly when they’re in the dormitory. As we chargedown the deserted streets, Firecom advises that an alarm and a boosterpump have been activated at the Northbridge Apartments building inSouth Brisbane. The reference point on the alarm callout places thetruck in the wrong position, but Peter Lalor’s local knowledge soonhas us heading the right way. For a minute I wonder if Dean Baird atFirecom might have called us out just to stir up Peter and myself, as weseemed to be on a wild goose chase. Tim Watkins executes a classyU-turn in the middle of an empty street and we head up a hill near theMater Hospital. Paul Goopy remarks on how bad the reference for thecall from Firecom was, but he knows they can only act on the infor-mation provided on the alarm sheets.

We alight in front of an eight-storey building and are greeted by occu-pants in pyjamas and dressing gowns. They are standing in the car parknext to the road in the cold morning air. We hear the sound of a smalldiesel motor and the escaping roar of water under high pressure. Thebooster pump for the building activates when water pressure falls below



a certain point and it had switched on automatically when the main pipeburst and water pressure dropped in the system. The water is squirtingeverywhere and, as Peter and Paul desperately try to find the leak andengine shutoff switch, we all get soaked and swallow a good amount ofdiesel smoke. The switch is found after a minute or so and the problemis soon rectified. Peter asks the occupants to contact the maintenanceman who had been working on the same pump the day before, and theysay that he’s already on his way.

After 30 minutes of securing the system and resetting alarms wereturn to the station, where Firecom is advised of the results and theneed to amend the callout alarm sheet. Peter now completes theAustralian Incident Reporting System documentation. Every incident islogged on to a computer, which records the what, where, who and whyof turnouts. It all forms part of an overall picture of how resources andassets are used on a minute-to-minute basis across the State. This formsthe basis for budgeting, forecasting, manpower allocations and variousstudies. At Roma Street, we’re all back in bed by 4.00 a.m.

Time: 0600 hours The dormitory is empty when I awake and I findthat all the firefighters are attending to chores and making the stationshipshape for the next shift. Coffee is offered, which I gladly accept.The station officers for the next shift arrive at 7.00 a.m. and begin theirroster attendance callbacks. The station officers change their shiftsabout an hour before the fire crews to facilitate the callback process incase of a turnout in the last hour of shift—and that is exactly what nowhappens.

Time: 0715 hours Firecom advises over the radio that there is a fire inBoundary Street, West End. The station officer for the next shift getsinto the jump seat next to driver Tim Watkins. The heavy morningtraffic provides Tim with a special challenge as we head across GreyStreet Bridge, but we still arrive in West End within three minutes ofturnout. We see a man waving his arms and I notice that the bodylanguage in Pump 902 has changed, the word ‘fire’ was mentioned inthe turnout. It is quite noticeable and small talk has all but ceased as wethunder down Boundary Street and pull up in front of a small building.We are led down a side lane to an outdoor concrete car park to see what



looks like smoke emanating from a grille set into the concrete surface.We remove the grille and a foul stench fills the air. The owner of therestaurant says it must be smoke, but the firefighters recognise steamwhen they see it. An inspection of the grease trap and the revelation thatcommercial dishwashers are in use in the restaurant lead the stationofficer to believe that all we have is steam on a cold morning. The wastetrap pumps are activated, no fire erupts in the trap, and hot water ispumped out—steaming as it meets the cold air.

By 0800 hours we are back in the station, just in time to hand over toD Shift who are coming on duty for the first day shift of their ‘tour’.

After one day and one night on shift I decided to do a complete tour,again with B Shift from Roma Street, from Thursday to Monday.

It was a varied five days. We conducted several boarding house andbuilding inspections. Most of the fire calls during this time were due tothe accidental triggering of automatic fire alarms—a lot of burningtoast—although there was a real fire caused by some people trying tobarbecue satay chicken inside their flat! We also had to deal with a‘roving arsonist’ who had set a grass fire dangerously close to a timberhouse in Red Hill and who then started setting fire to telephone booksin phone boxes. There were two MVAs—one of a fairly minor nature,and another more serious one involving two cars and a pedestrian.Thankfully there were no fatalities.

Automatic alarm calls

False alarms are a costly business for the fire service. In 2000, it has beenestimated, some 23 700 alarm calls across Queensland were false.A program to encourage maintenance of alarm systems has now beenput in place. At the time of writing, if a property with automatic alarmshas more than one alarm call within 60 days a flat fee of $371.50 ischarged for a second and all subsequent call outs.

You might think it would be easy to become blasé about automaticalarm calls, given the number of them that most stations have to attend.But Station Officer Mick Quinn recalls a time at South Townsvillewhen they got a call that was anything but false.



I was the second driver when we turned out to the TownsvilleGeneral Hospital nurses quarters about five years ago. We justthought: ‘Oh yeah, here we go again.’ As we pulled in, everybodylooked up about the same time and saw that it was a goer—and bigtime. It was going about four or five floors up and the flames weretearing out from that floor. There were a lot of renovations underway, so fortunately a lot of the area was unoccupied at the time. Wehad trouble gaining access and used a line up the side of the build-ing to drag the branch and hoses up. We then saw that the fire wasstarting to lick into the two floors above, so I brought the monitor,which was on top of the large Firepac 6000 pumper, into actionand was able to suppress the fire quite dramatically and restrict itto a single floor. Overall it was a real good save that night.

Every now and then something really bad comes along. On19 January 1990 Greg Scarlett was a junior firefighter with four and ahalf years under his belt and doing routine shifts out of Kemp Place inthe city, which is just as busy as Roma Street and has many automaticalarm calls. It was a memorable night.

Firecom told us to turn out to McTaggart’s Woolstore. There’dbeen an automatic alarm. We proceeded there, and Tom Dawsonwas the officer on the first car and I heard him say Code Two. JoeRyan, who was my officer, asked me, ‘Did he say Code Two?’because Joe couldn’t see any fire or smoke—it was dark in thestreet and on our side of the building. Tom Dawson said they’d goaround to the back of the building and he asked us to go around tothe front street. So we went there and we got the absolute shock ofour lives, because there were four storeys and every window onevery floor had thick black smoke just oozing out of every window,but there was not one bit of flame. We went down past a lanewayto what we thought at the time was a safe position. Joe Ryanordered two of us into BA and I remember thinking, ‘I don’t knowif I want to go in there with BA’, but he said to do it. So we put iton, and the other firefighter and myself walked down the laneway.Just as we did that, the nearest window blew out with a bang—exploded. We backpedalled really quickly and got out into the



middle of the road. Then every window exploded in succession,just like a collapsing pack of cards, and along every floor at thesame time. All four storeys at once, just boom, boom, boom!Within minutes every power pole in the street was on fire and theRailways house across the road was too.

Then the woolstore next door caught fire. I remember thinking,‘We’ve lost the first building’, and straight away we trained ourbranch on the woolstore next door. It had a timber bargeboardabove the big sandstone blocks and that had caught fire and therewas about a metre of flame coming from it. We were hitting it witha good solid jet and thinking, ‘Well, it can’t get any bigger’, but thenext minute the whole bargeboard was on fire and the alarmsstarted ringing. The flames shot across the roof trusses and thenthat woolstore was alight too . . . I remember the timber housenext to the first woolstore was now on fire . . . So we had twowoolstores and a house, plus the Railways house across the road,on fire. We also had smoke coming from an office block on theother corner, and every power pole in the street was burning.Except for the first woolstore it was all from radiated heat.

It was just too hot. Roma Street’s pump had arrived and we hadto reposition our TAP because of the heat on it. Roma Street’spump was further away than we were, but its plastic red lightswere melting! The radiated heat was phenomenal. A policemancame down and said there was a petrol tank on fire up the road,about 50 metres away, and we went there and saw these flames . . .but it turned out to be bitumen. I remember at one stage lookingalong the street and it was as if it was snowing. There was white-hot ash and you could hardly see the length of the street becauseof all the ash. It was in huge flakes—probably 8 inches across.It was truly an amazing scene.

Twenty or so units turned out. It was certainly a major fire . . .the odds of us putting it out were long. It was menacing, it wasugly.



THE REGIONALS

Firefighting work varies tremendously from one region to anotheracross the State—from the far north, a cyclone belt subject to floods,torrential rain and an annual influx of millions of tourists, to the far westwhere drought and searing heat create grassfires of enormous propor-tions; from small beachside towns dotted along the coast to placeswhere bush and town intermingle. The variety creates a diverse set ofchallenges for the QFRS. In this chapter we look at several regionalstations; unfortunately it is not possible to cover more than a fraction ofthe total.

Cairns—Far Northern Region

On a wall in the regional office hangs a photograph of the Mareeba RARteam that in one year (1999) won the State Championships, the

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Nationals and the World Championships. What is especially interestingabout that achievement is that Mareeba is an auxiliary station—reflect-ing the high standard of training that has been achieved since theamalgamation of Fire Brigade Boards in 1990. The Mayor of Cairns,Kevin Byrne, explains one of the reasons why well-trained emergencyservices are vital in the city: ‘Cairns has a high tourist throughput; at theheight of the season, on any one night, 30–40 per cent of the people inCairns are tourists. Their safety is important to the city because ofpublic perceptions and expectations.’

After the tragic Palace Backpackers Hostel fire in Childers, checksmade in Cairns by the fire service and local council revealed that almost80 per cent of the 50-plus backpackers hostels and B & Bs were operat-ing illegally. Many lacked fire escapes or had boarded-up exits. In oneestablishment used by Japanese tourists there were no exits except thefront door. Rapid action was taken by council to close down the offend-ing establishments.1

According to Station Officer Russell Matthews, the bulk of calls inCairns come from automatic alarms. Then follow MVAs, structural firesand grassfires in that order. Fuel reduction in the foothills and alongmain roads is essential with the seasonal change between wet season anddry season. Another major seasonal factor for the Far Northern Region’stwo permanent stations, seven mixed stations and sixteen auxiliarystations is the impact of cyclones. Every station has a laid down proce-dure to prepare for these storms. Russell Matthews explains: ‘Cairns isquite a low area, so there are contingency plans to move equipment tohigher ground if there is the threat of a significant tidal surge. Every timethere’s a tropical cyclone alert, the firies start going through their plans,getting fuel, checking equipment, securing kits and preparing to move tohigh ground.’ And usually there will be community emergencies forthem to deal with as they occur.

Peter Beauchamp, who looks after strategic development in theCairns area and spends a lot of his time dealing with local authorities,says that eco-tourism is now a huge business. In 1999–2000 about1.2 million tourists flew into Cairns, many of them drawn by the rain-forests. The challenge for Peter is ‘making the firefighters realise whatthe greatest asset is—the environment’. The ranges are worth far moreto the economy than anything else. Buildings can be replaced but the

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world heritage rainforests would take a millennium to restore. For firiesthe problem is compounded by the housing spreading up into the foot-hills—the houses there are almost inaccessible in trucks and thedwellings are surrounded by forest.

Ayr—Northern Region

Northern Region has four permanent, six mixed and ten auxiliarystations looking after almost a quarter of a million people in an enor-mous area that extends west to the Northern Territory border and southto the South Australian border near Birdsville.

Ayr station is located in a wooden two-storey building, com-missioned in 1955, that once housed the old Burdekin Fire Brigadeand had the chief fire officer’s residence on the first floor. The stationnow has a complement of two station officers and six firefighters whowork a five-days on/four-days off ten-hour shift system. At night,during their five-day tour of duty, the firefighters live at home and arerecalled by pager. The Ayr day shift runs from 7.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.seven days a week. The permanents and auxiliaries who providebackup are all on pager after hours. The turnouts take no more thantwo minutes at Ayr as most of the firefighters live within one minuteof the station house.

Ayr is a busy station, as it looks after Area 2 for the Northern Region(Townsville being Area 1), and averages over 165 calls per year. In someyears the average will be much higher if the grassfire season is a bad one.The station also has a very high turnout (70 per cent) to motor vehicleaccidents.2

Auxiliaries supplement the station and there are about ten who serveat Ayr. Some of them are temporary firefighters filling in for perma-nents who are on leave. Apart from Area Director Brenton Walton, atwenty-year veteran who began his career in South Australia, and SvenDiga, a graduate of the February–April 2000 recruit course, the rest ofthe firefighters at Ayr, including Station Officer Darren Male, startedtheir careers as auxiliary firefighters. Darren is a local man. His fatherwas a firefighter and his grandfather an ambulance officer. Sven Digaarrived straight from his recruit course and recalls: ‘I was “bished” with

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a bucket of water from upstairs by Station Officer Greg Bousett. Sort ofa welcome to the station!’

Late in the afternoon on which I was there, the second pumpreturned from a safety awareness day held for primary school studentsunder the Giddy Goanna program. Auxiliary firefighter Jane Hill, anAboriginal mother of three, was on the pump. She’d been out with thecrew helping to give lectures and passing out kits to remind the childrenof fire safety procedures. Jane has been an auxiliary for four years andloves the work and its challenges.

Townsville—Northern Region

Townsville (Area 1, population 140 000) comprises four permanentlymanned stations, each with one and three except for Townsville South,which normally has two and four. Wulguru, Kirwan and Woodlands areone-pumper stations. Townsville South has several appliances: a TAP,a composite pumper, a regional spare, a 4WD, a grassfire unit, an Oper-ational Support Unit command and control vehicle, and an ET. It alsohas a magnificently restored 1938 Dennis truck that was on the originalestablishment of the Townsville Fire Brigade Board.

In the area there are copper, nickel and zinc refineries, a large portand terminal, light and heavy industry, a gas loading and unloading facil-ity, an industrial gas plant, oil farms, and a large urban spread along theRoss River. There are also swags of backpackers hostels (pun intended).

There are no auxiliary stations on the Area 1 establishment, but aux-iliaries are used to supplement crews as temporaries. The shifts inArea 1 are organised into ‘platoons’ to allow the firies to be moved fromone station to another in case there is a shortfall in crews. The A Shiftplatoon, for example, has about five officers and seventeen firefighters.The people in Firecom are also included in this shift arrangement (butnot for manning pumps). The experience level in the area is similar tothat in urban areas around Brisbane, with an average of fourteen-and-a-half years’ service per shift. Most of the firefighters are from theTownsville area.

The work includes MVAs, structural fires, chemical incidents, andeven pumping out sinking trawlers that have accidentally got jammed

THE REGIONALS 133


under a jetty. In the latter case, Wayne McLennan says, they use aventuri system through a case feed and actually put water in the sinkingboat to enable a suction process to develop. Then they get the water outagain. It’s disconcerting for trawler owners to suddenly see water goingin to their boat. They yell out: ‘No, no, I want it emptied!’

The area is in a tropical cyclone belt. Mick Quinn remarks: ‘Afterfloods we go around and assist people in cleaning mud out of theirhouses with the hoses—especially where the water mark is maybe 7 feetup the wall!’ But then dry season arrives, grassfires erupt with greaterfrequency. A ‘dry’ wet season adds to the fuel load enormously and thearea can get several hundred grassfires in a couple of months.

The platoon system adds to the camaraderie among Townsville firies.One of the ways they keep the drivers on their toes in this town is thatif one of them clips a gutter while pushing his 13-tonne truck aroundthe streets he has to buy his shift a cake. Dick Gledhill says: ‘Even thecake-shop lady knows about it. The worst part is driving the TAP inMitchell Street in North Ward—it’s impossible and guarantees a cakeevery time!’

Townsville and Northern Region Firecom is a busy unit. ShiftSupervisor Tina McLeod has been a communications officer for sixyears. Tina is a single mum with two kids. She works with one consoleoperator, Juanita Pugh, who ran a small business prior to becoming a‘commo’. The Firecom room has two ‘reserve’ consoles which can beused in very busy times and during critical incidents.

Charters Towers—Northern Region

This very old gold mining town is 140 kilometres from Townsville. Thefire station is cramped and old. The town has a population of almost10 000. The shift manning of one and three includes two probationaryfirefighters, Scott Dewar and Warren Hosking. It is a day shift stationand eighteen auxiliaries form the backup. The permanents work fivedays a week from 8.00 a.m. until 4.00 p.m. and are on pager seven daysa week. The area the firies cover is about the size of Tasmania. Somecalls might involve a 200-kilometre drive.

Charters Towers is a typical old country Queensland town with the

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bulk of the houses being wooden high-set homes. There are somedilapidated buildings that are serious fire risks.

The bulk of calls relate to MVAs, grassfires, automatic alarms at oldpeoples homes, private fire alarms, and snake catching. Yes, snakes!They’re almost wall-to-wall at Charters Towers, especially when itfloods after heavy rain. Not just pythons, but deadly browns and tigers.The National Parks and Wildlife rangers run newly arrived firiesthrough the procedures for catching snakes, and the firefighters havefashioned some ingenious devices for snaring and holding the reptiles.

The firies at Charters Towers have to be self-reliant because they arehours from anywhere. They do their own BA set charging and dieselmaintenance. Warren Hosking is a diesel and motor mechanic and canturn his hand to almost anything mechanical, which is a boon to thestation.

Roy Simpson is the area director for Area 4 in Northern Region andhas five totally different stations to look after—Ingham (where he isbased), Halifax, Forrest Beach, Charters Towers and Magnetic Island.His biggest challenge is:

Bringing the troops into the twenty-first century and [helpingthem to recognise] the ethnicity and cultural diversity within thearea. The people who make up the area are all quite different inoutlook and character. We have a resort at Forrest Beach, a cane-growing community at Ingham and a western cattle-growing areaat Charters Towers. At Charters Towers probably only 10 per centof the people have a job and the rest are retired or out of work. Somy challenge is to get the troops to realise all of that and work as ateam in all that diversity.

Rockhampton—Central Region

Central Region has four permanent, six mixed and 29 auxiliary stationsservicing over 320 000 people. The region has a mix of cattle, sugar cane,mining and industrial operations and is enormous, reaching west towhere the Northern Territory border meets that of South Australia. Themain station (and area headquarters) is in Kent Street in Rockhampton.

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It is a big station with a 20-metre tower for rappelling and a large garagecapable of holding an ET, a Firepac 400 composite pumper, a hydraulicplatform and a grassfire tender. The RFS headquarters is also housed inthe building, along with a small museum collection.

The shift at Rockhampton’s main station has two and five—one andfour on the composite unit and one and one on the platform. Most ofthe firefighters come from the local area. North Rockhampton has abrand new station built along composite lines, with the QueenslandAmbulance Service sharing the property. The firies there work a shift ofone and three.

From time to time regional firefighters face big and very dangerousstructural fires—their work isn’t confined to grassfires and the like byany means. A major incident in Rockhampton in 1989 illustrated thispoint all too well.

A nightclub in the centre of the city called the Shark Club had beenundergoing renovations when it was torched with accelerants. StationOfficer Trevor Kidd, senior firefighters Brian Edmonds and DavidSemple and a number of their colleagues turned out to an ‘explosion’ ataround 3.00 a.m. on 10 November 1989. Another station officer, AlanTitman, was on the first car and his crew had pulled up outside the club.The front door was open and they noticed several spot fires inside. TrevorKidd was the second officer to arrive. He recounts what happened next:

I pulled up around the corner. Alan and his crew advanced insideand put out the spot fires. There was not a real lot of smoke. I tookover radio control on the outside of the building, which is thenormal procedure for the second officer.

David Semple and another firie, Stephen Shaw, entered the clubwearing BA sets. The room was under renovation and there weresections of scaffolding in it. They now saw a small fire burning in alighting system in the ceiling. Firefighter Shaw climbed up on to thescaffolding to put it out. As he did so, a huge explosion erupted. TrevorKidd was outside on the footpath.

I’d just passed a radio message to Firecom that the situation wasunder control, and at that instant the explosion went off . . . I had

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actually turned around and was starting to walk back towards thenightclub doors, and was probably about 2 metres away, when theexplosion happened. From what I remember, there was a vividflash, a bang, and then I found myself lying down on my back onthe footpath. But all of that happened in a micro-second, ofcourse.

Trevor was in fact blown backwards about 3 metres. The bomb,consisting of six sticks of gelignite, had been inside the doorway to theright. The blast had channelled around and ripped the two doors offtheir hinges. A heavy iron bar used to secure the doors had hit Kidd’s‘Cromwell’ helmet, shearing the top of it off. (The helmet is now in theRockhampton Fire Brigade Museum.)

Trevor continues:

The damage to my body was mainly just massive tissue damagefrom top to bottom, and extreme whiplash that resulted in mehaving no feeling below my chest. So, my neck was injured, myhelmet was ripped off, and my chinstrap was found across six lanesof traffic, a median strip and on the other side of the road! It musthave just flown through the air.

Strangely enough, Trevor wasn’t knocked out, but he was dazed for acouple of seconds. His portable radio was on the footpath beside hishand. He tried to grab it but found that his hands wouldn’t work.Firefighter Brian Edmonds was in the truck trying to call in with whathad happened. The crew naturally thought that those inside the clubcould not have survived the enormous explosion. In fact there wereinjuries but, unbelievably, no deaths. David Semple had been blownagainst the scaffolding and had injured his right elbow. Dave, who wasinside with Alan Titman, says:

There was a yellow glow and then she went boom! I got blownagainst the scaffolding; my ears were sore from the explosion. Thepoliceman with us had shrapnel in his leg. Alan Titman was flat-tened and had a sore neck for quite a long time.

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Brian Edmonds recalls Shaw had massive damage from being blownthrough the air the moment of the blast:

I was behind the pump, facing the other way. I felt this cool air gopast my face, and that must have been the air going in, and then itblew out with a huge force. It’s something I will never forget. Weall got showered with glass. I was lucky in that I had just movedfrom the other side, where Trevor was, when it blew. It would havekilled me probably, because I was taller than Trevor and the ironbar would have hit me in the chest.

The brand new $125 000 fire truck had its windscreen blown out andanother window shattered. The side door facing the explosion got badlybuckled. The gantry on the ladder on top of the pumper was bent.

Bravely, the firefighters went back inside the building to check forany fires that had been started or re-ignited by the blast. They foundtwo more unexploded bombs, each of five sticks of gelignite. While thiswas going on, Trevor Kidd was slowly regaining his wits but was still flaton his back on the footpath.

I could hear a Kiwi firie by the name of Steve. He was asking ‘Areyou okay?’, and I thought: ‘If I don’t say something, this bastard isgoing to give me mouth to mouth!’ Finally, I was able to focus andapparently the first words I said were: ‘Piss off, Steve, and leave mealone.’ I didn’t want him giving me mouth to mouth. BrianEdmonds said later that he wasn’t sure what condition I was in, butwhen he heard me say that to Steve he reckoned I was okay.

The injured men were taken to hospital for x-rays and the like. Whenthey got there a male nurse started cutting Trevor’s clothes off. Firies’boots in those days were heavy leather ones and they took years to getbroken in. The nurse was about to cut them off too and ruin them, butTrevor yelled: ‘I don’t give a fuck what you do, just don’t cut my boots!’Having been hit by a massive energy force equivalent to being run downby a bus, plus the hit on his head, Trevor needed three months off work.He slowly got better and with self-imposed rehabilitation was eventu-ally able to walk without pain.

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A suspect in this incident was brought to trial but cleared of anywrong doing. The case is still open.

Nambour—North Coast Region

Sitting with me in Nambour station, 27-year veteran Senior StationOfficer Fred Heiniger remarks that his outfit is a bit unique in the area.He says: ‘Caloundra, Maroochydore and Noosa stations all look aftertheir own districts, but here we look after Nambour, Woombye,Palmwoods, Eumundi and up on the Blackall Ranges. And even thoughMontville, Mapleton and Julong are “rural” areas, if they get a structuralfire the Nambour crew are first response.’

Fred speaks with pride of the knowledge his men have of the localarea, and then goes on to tell the story of the biggest night the Nambourfire station has ever had. It serves to illustrate the fact that even quietrural areas can have their moments.

On the eve of Anzac Day 1987 the crew were standing outsidethe station and talking about how they would attack the manse of theCatholic church across the road—where the nuns lived—if it caught onfire. A little later, around 11.30 p.m., they saw a man cross the emptyroad and within a matter of minutes a terrific explosion went off nextdoor in the Church of England church. They raced around the cornerand found flames coming out, everywhere. The crew informed theFirecom operator, who worked upstairs in the Nambour station at thetime, that the church next door was on fire and that they were going toput it out.

The operator then had to get the station manned with a backup crewwhile the first crew responded. She rang around and Fred Heiniger wasone of the first to arrive, along with the fire chief. The Firecom phonenow began to ring hot with numerous calls saying, ‘Our church is onfire’, and the operator kept answering, before they could say which one:‘Yes, we know. The fire brigade’s there.’ Fred recalls:

As I walked in, about a dozen people were running up the street.One was a mate of mine and he said: ‘My church is on fire!’ I knewhe belonged to the Lutheran Church and I thought: ‘Shit, the

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Lutheran Church is also on fire.’ Just then one of the men whohad been putting out the Church of England fire next door cameover and said it was out. So I told him: ‘Jump in this pump here,you and I are going down to the Lutheran Church.’

But Fred and the firie were only part of the way to this second firewhen the full drama of the night began to unfold.

When we got to Maude Street we saw that the hall beside theMethodist Church was ablaze and going like a rocket. It was ahuge brick hall with concrete tiles on the roof and it was explod-ing. I got on the radio to Firecom and said I wasn’t going anyfurther because the Methodist Church was now on fire. I also saidI believed that the Lutheran Church was on fire as well.3

The night went on from there. Fire engines responded fromCaloundra, Noosa and Maroochydore. It was a big night for Nambour.Fred says: ‘I was at the Methodist Church, which is right next door tothe Nambour Telephone Exchange. The flames and the heat were sointense that the girls working there all bailed out.’

Fred then tried to commandeer an appliance going past his fire.

I saw the hydraulic platform from Maroochydore coming downthe road and I thought: ‘This is exactly what I need to put a curtainof water across the gap to give us protection.’ So I stood in themiddle of the road, calling them in and waving my arms . . . andthey went straight past! Unbeknown to me there was a lot moregoing on down town. They were off to the Christian Bookstorecomplex, which included a bank, a hardware store, a hairdresserand a laundromat—so I missed out and only had one pump at myfire. But I finished up getting a few extra firefighters as theygradually arrived.

In the end the firies didn’t have to attend the Catholic Church, eventhough a fire broke out there too. One of the nuns had got up duringthe night and had seen a glow in the church that was clearly muchbigger than normal. She woke up the other two nuns and they went

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down to the church, looked across the road and saw that there were nofire engines at the station. So they took matters into their own hands.They quickly grabbed fire extinguishers and put the fire out. Thedamage was estimated at thousands of dollars; nonetheless it was a goodsave because it wasn’t a small fire and it had a lot of heat in it.

At this stage only one church was left untouched—the Presbyterian,which was out on Coronation Avenue. By now, of course, the chiefofficer had realised that something evil was afoot. He asked the policeto head immediately for the Presbyterian church. And there they appre-hended the offender.

In all, five fires were lit within a half hour period. The total damagewas estimated at over a million dollars. The perpetrator was a 34-year-old former Army officer and Viet Nam veteran, Kenneth Gosschalk,who had served in 17 Construction Squadron in June 1968–69. Headmitted the crime of arson when he was caught. Fred says: ‘He was putaway for a while, but I think it became a psychiatric thing because hewas a Viet Nam vet, and he ended up in a mentally-ill ward.’4

Toowoomba—Southwestern Region

This vast region extends west to the South Australian border. It has twopermanent, two mixed and 40 auxiliary stations. Getting to an incidentcan take a very long time—sometimes three hours. And Station OfficerJack Wensley says: ‘If I have to go to Cunnamulla, it’s a nine-hourdrive.’ Jack is responsible for BA training in the region, which includestraining some of the rural brigades so that they can tackle structural firesin very remote areas.

On the Toowoomba range they have their own problems, like densefog. One night a fire crew drove straight past a house on fire, the fogwas so thick.5 Also, the firies say they always seem to be going uphill!There is increasing urban sprawl, creating problems of response time.There is no reticulated water at the far ends of the greater town area,so they always take two vehicles with about 2000 litres on the Type 9composite pumpers. Toowoomba itself sits like a green oasis on thetop of the range, but 50 kilometres out of town it is as ‘dry as a chip’.It gets seriously cold at night owing to the altitude and many firies

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recall having had ice form on their old woollen jackets at a midwinterfire.

The main road coming down the Toowoomba range is deadly. Thenumber of bad accidents has been enough for the council to build anemergency helicopter landing pad about halfway down, for casualtyevacuation. Senior Firefighter Vince Hinder, who has been in Too-woomba for all of his 25 years’ service, says: ‘Many drivers get taken outby the load coming through and chopping them in half. The driversdon’t always put their trucks into low gear and their brakes fail; thegrease in the front wheels catches on fire, and sometimes tailshafts comechopping through all the brake lines.’

The Toowoomba area has a heavy grass and bush fire turnout in thedry season from October through to December. It’s a real concern, asBob Buckley explains: ‘Some of the range area hasn’t burnt in 25 yearsand council is desperately trying to reduce the hazard.’ About half of thetotal 600–800 calls each year are to automatic fire alarms and MVAs.Many of the automatic alarms originate at a local psychiatric hospital.Structural fires and other calls make up the balance. There have beenseveral huge fires in the past but the number of structural turnoutsseems to be dropping, a fact that many firies attribute to public safetyprograms and Fire Ed. But the local milk-processing factory has gone upat least twice, causing Bob Buckley to quip: ‘At least we know where togo these days.’

Amazingly, there are only some ten permanent firefighters on shift ina town of 85 000 people. Community support for them is very strong.The firies, in turn, have raised over $30 000 for the local hospital in thelast six years through their annual golf day.

Dalby—Southwestern Region

Dalby is about 85 kilometres west of Toowoomba. Area DirectorGraham Cooke has seven auxiliary stations to look after and, as they arespread over a fairly large area, he can clock up 50 000 kilometres a yearvisiting them. Women make up about 20 per cent of the area’s firefight-ers. Graham says: ‘I have 92 auxiliaries on the books and that numberfluctuates. My greatest challenge is getting people to enlist.’ Training is

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difficult to arrange because of the distances involved, and a lot of timeand effort is expended on it.

A breakdown of the 350 fire calls in Dalby from 1 July to30 November 2000 indicates that just over 42 per cent were grass andbush fires, 18 per cent were MVAs, 18 per cent were structural fires, andthe rest were chemical incidents, animal rescues etc.6

The bushfire season runs from the end of winter, as the fuel gets dryfrom August/September. The peak fire period is often November, withearly summer storms throwing out a lot of lightning. Water supply inthe area is a problem and Graham says they have to be resourceful inusing private supplies and council or shire water tankers.

The MVAs are mostly out on the highway and are ‘high speed andfairly traumatic; on the remote roads they are often catastrophic’. In drytimes many of the road accidents are caused by animals coming to theroadside verges looking for grass. Area support is the main concern;a unit can respond but backup is a problem. Attending to RAR calls onroads like the Moonie Highway means a three-hour run and Grahamcan have a crew out at a fatal accident all day. When a crew go out on atwo-hour job Firecom have to arrange a backup. It is a ‘risk manage-ment’ approach and involves ‘staging’ with other units. As Grahamexplains: ‘We have to provide the service and not take a chance.’

Southport—Southeastern Region

With a population of over three-quarters of a million and an inordinatenumber of high rise buildings, the region has fifteen permanent stationsand seventeen auxiliary stations. There are 640 permanent firies in theregion, who spend half of their time attending to automatic fire alarms.The rest of the calls are largely split between MVAs, chemical incidentsand ‘real fires’. Apart from the hundreds of high rise buildings, theterrain varies from flat residential areas to steep forest-covered slopes inthe hinterland.

Julie Bennett, supervisor of Southport Firecom—the second largestFirecom in the State—has two particularly busy times in the year. Oneis the bushfire season. In the summer of 2000 she and her offsiders had240 calls in one memorable day. The other busy time comes when the

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Gold Coast hosts the annual Indy Grand Prix car race. Units are placedat strategic points around the entire circuit to cope with emergencies—of all types. The firies’ role includes foot patrols. At Firecom, Julie alsolooks after the rural fire brigades, who are very active in this remarkablydiverse region.

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CHILDERS

Childers Fire Brigade has a history going back 60 years. It began as thevoluntary private brigade for Isis Shire, a cane-growing district inthe North Coast Region. It was a council-funded brigade until 1996.The town is located in a large agricultural area, halfway betweenMaryborough and Bundaberg, that employs hundreds of itinerant crop-pickers every season—many of whom are young international visitorsbackpacking their way around Australia on a working holiday.

The Childers fire station is manned by three officers and nine fire-fighters. All are auxiliaries. The crew profile reflects a blend of youthand experience, with an average time in service of almost six years. Thecaptain is Curl Santacaterina, 50, a locomotive driver from the Isis sugarmill who has been an auxiliary firefighter for 21 years. The otherofficers are Lieutenant Wayne Harbourne, 40, a sugar boiler, with four-teen years’ service; and Lieutenant Richard Randell, 33, a scientificassistant who works at the Isis State High School and has been a

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firefighter for fourteen years. The firefighters are: Damien Tarda, 25,auto electrician, nine years’ service; John Ratcliffe, 36, tyre fitter, nineyears; Tim Bunn, 41, cane farmer, seven years; Bob Winkelmann, 42,truck driver, six years; Martin Bettridge, 36, mechanic, five years (not allin Childers); Linda Ratcliffe, 32, bar attendant (and wife of John), twoand a half years; Matthew Dalton, 28, receptionist, two and half years;Hayden Whitaker, 25, auto mechanic, two years; Nigel McKey, 35,mechanic, one year.

The station is immediately off Churchill Street, which is the mainstreet in town and forms part of the Bruce Highway. The Rural FireService in Childers operates out of the same building and compound. Ithas a complement of twenty. Many of the auxiliaries ‘wear two hats’ andalso turn out with the RFS to grass and bush fires.

The fire

At 12.32 a.m. on Friday 23 June 2000, the North Coast Firecom oper-ator at Kawana, Colin Kennedy, sent a fire call to the Childers auxiliarybrigade. Colin had received a 000 call saying that the Palace BackpackersHostel at 72 Churchill Street was on fire. The hostel was originally theRedmonds Palace Hotel, which was built after a major fire in 1902destroyed half the town. The two-storey structure featured a largeatrium between the two sections of the building. The hostel had accom-modation for 101 people; a stairwell in the atrium led to the sleepingquarters. The Palace was a typical Queensland commercial structurefrom the turn of the last century, with an awning over the footpath, andit formed part of a row of shops and business premises along the widestreet, down the centre of which ran a median strip with trees.

The pagers went off on the firies’ bedside tables. Some drove to thestation, and others, like Lieutenant Richard Randell, ran a short distancefrom their houses. The first truck pulled up in front of the hostel fiveminutes after the fire call was sent. The captain, Curl Santacaterina, sawthat the building was already well involved with flames and that smokewas rising in the cold foggy air. Curl immediately went into action withhis crew, telling Richard to send the message ‘Pumps 3’ to Firecom, ashe knew he would need support. It was a dramatic scene. Occupants

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were streaming out of the burning building, and the Childers crew werefacing a big fire with limited resources.1

At Bundaberg station, C Shift were on duty and in their dormitory.The crew, who also happened to be the ‘buddy shift’ of the Childersbrigade and helped with their training, were led by Acting StationOfficer Andrew McCracken. Driving the pump, and number two, wasGary Black. Ross Gatley was number one and branchman. The numberthree was Vicki Shailer. Between them, this crew had more than75 years’ firefighting experience.

They reacted quickly to the Childers call for support and were out oftheir station within two minutes. They used the ‘out-of-town’ appli-ance, a Mitsubishi truck, which carried more water than the towntender did. They ran the sirens only through the occasional settlementen route, but had their flashing lights on all the way. The road downfrom Bundaberg along the Bruce Highway is good. But on this night avery heavy fog made driving fast difficult if not dangerous. On the tripthe crew were listening intently to the messages being passed betweenChilders and Kawana Firecom and they knew that the Childers brigadehad a big fire on their hands. They also heard transmissions from theChilders crew reporting ‘persons missing’. They became a bit frustratedlistening to Childers asking Firecom where they were as they trundleddown the Bruce Highway. The fastest they could go in the fog was80 kilometres per hour and often it was less. It took them close to40 minutes to make the 53-kilometre journey.2

Meanwhile, on the fire ground things were frantic. LieutenantRandell had taken command, donning his ‘Fire Commander’ tabbardfor easy identification, while Captain Curl Santacaterina and BobWinkelmann put on their BA sets and went in looking for survivors.The middle and upper parts of the building were working and becom-ing involved. In the street, it was dark and foggy. People were millingaround in a dazed fashion, but the local police quickly arrived andstarted controlling the crowd of backpackers who had managed toescape the inferno. Many of the young people were crying, others juststood in stunned disbelief staring at the dense smoke and flames belch-ing out of the upper windows.

The Childers rural tanker was also deployed and was sent to the rearof the hostel, in Macrossan Street, to attack the fire from that flank. The

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fire was now getting a strong hold there as well. Inside the building,Curl and Bob were faced with a huge wall of flame in the downstairssection near the stairwell. The fire was starting to show all the indi-cations of a flashover and to suck smoke back in through the front door.The heat was now obviously very intense and, using his radio, RichardRandell told Curl and Bob to get out of the building.

Nine minutes after the initial fire call, there was a huge flashover andRichard switched to defensive operations, withdrawing his branchmen.Their task was virtually impossible now, as they were confronting asolid wall of flame with a small Case 1 medium pressure hose and only2250 litres of pumper water.

Curl and Bob reacted smartly to Richard’s order, but as Bob exitedthe front door the massive flashover showered him with moltenaluminium from the ornate fretwork on the top verandah. The plasticbeacons on the brigade’s new truck melted, as did the plastic covers onits seats, and the vehicle’s mobile phone display window popped out.And the truck had been relocated some 27 metres from the fire!

The hostel was now fully involved—all within ten minutes of the 000call. The crew had decided to concentrate on protecting the adjoiningbuildings. The possibility of searching for missing people had dis-appeared when the fire exploded.

Reports of 86 people staying in the hostel were circulating, but only69 or 70 had been accounted for. There was a good deal of confusionamong the backpackers about who was where. Different reports beganto filter back to Richard Randell, who was still directing operations.This is the moment any firefighter dreads and with so many peoplemilling around it became difficult to ascertain the exact numbermissing. The Childers crew now had to determine exactly who was notoutside and should have been.

The crew were also trying to get as many hose lines charged as theycould. Curl Santacaterina had taken off down Churchill Street to find aplug. He recalls: ‘The power lines came down around me as I wasputting in a standpipe. I was in such a hurry, and not wanting to getzapped, I broke regulations by not flushing the standpipe prior tocoupling up the hoses.’

Power to the hostel was cut off by an Ergon Electricity crew about30 minutes into the fire.

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Back in Bundaberg, Area Director John Watson was asleep in bedwhen his pager went off at 12.45 a.m. He says: ‘The message is still onmy pager—saying, “A major fire at the Backpackers Hostel in Childers,people reported missing”.’ Three nights before that he’d been wokenabout a shed on fire in Bundaberg. He’d rung the fire crew and they’dsaid, ‘Don’t worry about it’, so he went back to bed. The next nightthey’d had an MVA and again he was told he wasn’t needed. His pagerhad gone off each night at one or two in the morning and his wife hadthreatened to put it in the fridge.

On the night of the Childers fire John heard a heavy sigh next to himas he moved to answer the pager call. He got up, dressed, and his wifeasked what it was. He replied: ‘It’s a bad one and I’ve got to go.’ Johnjumped into his QFRS car and drove as fast as possible through thepea-soup fog. When he got to Childers he took over as incident con-troller. He recalls the scene:

It was surreal. It was still very foggy, and there were so manypeople around, it was phenomenal. There are only 2500 people inthe town and they all seemed to be there . . . the street was justlined with people. Many of those who’d been evacuated werewearing white sheets—just standing there watching it all unfold.It was very spooky.

The street had by now been closed by the police and traffic was beingdiverted with the assistance of SES personnel.

John Watson needed to establish exactly what was going on, what hadbeen done so far and what was planned, so that he could determine theresources that might still be required or have to be reallocated.

I grabbed Richard Randell and got a briefing; he had done a headcount but they were having trouble determining exactly how manywere accounted for. At one stage it was 60 on the footpath oppo-site and nine in hospital. Andrew McCracken and his crew hadarrived from Bundaberg at about the same time I did, so we splitthe job and Andrew took the back half and then we started search-ing. The fire in the building was such that there was very littlechance of anyone being alive upstairs.

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Andrew McCracken was also briefed by Richard and they immedi-ately dispatched Bundaberg’s Gary Black and Vicki Shailer as a team tothe rear of the hostel. Wearing BA sets and using a Case 3 hose line, thepair attacked a two-storey rear deck which was now a raging inferno.As they advanced up the back stairs they found that large holes hadalready been burnt in the first floor. The towering flames providedsufficient light for them to see what had happened. To advance into thefire, Gary and Vicki had to shuffle forward to ensure a safe footing. Ittook twenty minutes of very hot, hard work but the pair—protected bydefensive sprays directed by other firies—knocked the fire down at therear of the hostel. They came back to rest for about five minutes andthen returned to douse the area down. Rural Fire Service volunteerswere also at the rear of the building; their task was to protect adjoiningproperties and provide support to Gary and Vicki and other attackteams.3

Bundaberg’s Ross Gatley assisted Childers firefighter John Ratcliffeon his Case 3 line in a side laneway. Flames were licking up high in thelaneway and soaring over the top of the building next door, so the twofiries immediately focused on protecting the adjoining building—anaction that helped quell the spread of the fire.

A local council employee diverted additional water into theChurchhill Street mains when the demand from four Case 3 lines, twoCase 1 lines and two pumpers began to drain the supply. Before the firewas deemed totally out it would consume an incredible 3 million litresof water.

By 3.00 a.m., with the help of additional gear sent down fromBundaberg, the fire was virtually out. But there were still hot spots thatrequired attention and this kept the crews busy until dawn. John Watsonrecalls the scene:

Downstairs there was next to no damage—it was unusual. We usedthe Ergon ‘cherry picker’ to get people on to the upstairs landingand verandah and into the building, but the devastation was suchthat it was totally unsafe. The roof and many walls were down.The crews couldn’t get very far in because the floor had burnt out.And all that damage was done in the first hour. They searchedeverywhere they possibly could, but to no avail.

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After the fire

In the freezing morning, shopkeepers in Churchill Street rallied at firstlight. The proprietor of the Sugar Bush Cafe cooked meals for the fire-fighters and volunteers. Others began providing hot drinks andsandwiches. The young backpackers who had escaped the fire in theirnight attire were given clothes provided by one of the local charity‘op shops’. One British backpacker appeared in a brown suit and a seri-ously ugly 10 centimetre-wide tie.

At dawn John Watson asked the firefighters to count the victims andmake a map of where they lay. Planks were put down to enable peopleto walk about safely. All of the victims appeared to have perishedupstairs, though one body had fallen through the floor. A flashover hadalso occurred in the front room, where there was a pile of seven or eightbodies in good condition. The corpses were described as ‘just black withno hair’. Several bodies were scattered in other upstairs areas and onewas still in a bed.4

A relief-in-place for the fire crews was conducted later that day. TheBundaberg C Shift crew, nevertheless, elected to stay on until they hadfinished the search. In all, fifteen bodies were discovered. They wereleft in situ for a few days while the Fire Investigation squad, the coronerand the police began their job of trying to piece together what hadhappened and why. The Disaster Victim Identification Unit then under-took the grisly task of body recovery.

An Urban Search and Rescue team arrived during the morning of thefire to work with the Childers crew and Bundaberg relief firies in makingthe building safe. They found some remarkable anomalies. A BMW sedanin the lane next to the hostel, and the pool table in a front room, weretotally untouched. In the foyer of the building the goldfish were still alive!

John Watson became extremely busy as the morning wore on.

As the incident commander, the fire commander, I was thecoordinator of all activity with agencies like Ergon, the police,SES, QAS—virtually anyone who came on to the fire ground—until it was declared a crime scene later in the morning. Aboutmid-morning it was reported that owing to the fatalities the copswould take over.

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In an incident as serious as the Childers fire the police involvementis huge, with homicide, arson, scientific and scene of crime units arriv-ing. The QFRS steps back a little after the fire is out, and the police haveprime carriage of responsibility, but it is still a combined effort.

While everyone was devastated by the horrific scene, John Watsonsays: ‘No matter which way you look at it, the Childers crew could nothave done any more.’ The time it took the building to reach flashover,which indicates total involvement, was only a few minutes. TheBundaberg firies were also complimentary about the Childers crew.Despite the intense radiant heat, smoke and flames, the adjoining SillySollys discount store and a flanking butcher shop escaped with minimaldamage. Apart from the hostel, which was impossible to save, the crewhad done a remarkable job. Their captain, Curl Santacaterina, stated thathe ‘wouldn’t swap any one of them’.

News of the fire spread quickly, with media attention turning it intoa national and international news story. John remarks:

The media liaison officer took 300 phone calls in four hours—andthat was just him. I had to take a fair share of calls myself. By9.30 a.m. I was doing interviews for Australian and internationalTV and radio for morning editions; just fielding questions fromeverywhere. Sometimes the media can be a pain, but this timeabout 98 per cent of them were excellent and considerate.

So many media helicopters arrived that aviation authorities had to setup a flight exclusion zone and control air traffice in the area. Also,reflecting the magnitude of the disaster, visits were paid by a number ofdignitaries including two governors, the prime minister, federal andstate ministers and foreign consuls.

Seven days after the fire, Area Director John Watson conducted aformal operational debriefing, incorporating the Bundaberg C Shift, theChilders auxiliaries, Kawana Firecom supervisor Jim Legge, the RFS,the police, the ambulance service and Ergon. He says: ‘We dissected it,not looking for blame. It was about reinforcing everyone’s actions.Once all the stories were out, everyone could let go, and then theyrealised they’d done a good job. It also allowed me to get a fullerpicture.’ Many of the firefighters were shocked by what they saw in the

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cleanup. John comments: ‘It doesn’t matter what happens, there willalways be some carry-over trauma. It took about a week and a half forthem to come back up again. It hit home hardest when you saw the agesof the victims.’

There was certainly major trauma for the backpackers who’d escapedthe conflagration. Many were more than 15 000 kilometres from home,and as John describes them, ‘really only kids, and without any familysupport present’. The mayor of Childers did a great job rallying histownspeople and the wider community, who provided help and welfare.John adds: ‘He was shattered about what had happened to his town.’

The firies felt they needed to close off this terrible event and decidedto have a social gathering of everyone who’d been involved. It wasdeemed to be part of the counselling process that occurs after a majorincident. John Watson explains: ‘We usually have a formal debriefingASAP after an incident, and then there’s a break of a fortnight or so andwe have an informal activity like a barbecue and close it off.’

The Childers social, planned for late July, would end up ‘biggerthan Ben Hur’. The then QFRA chief commissioner, Wayne Hartley,said he would come and ‘cook at the barbie’. The Emergency Servicesdirector general said he would come along too; and when the ambu-lance crews found out about the event, the whole thing snowballed. Inthe end, 200 turned up.

The C Shift crew at Bundaberg took a bus to Childers so that theycould ‘have a few beers’ at the party. They weren’t going to go thirsty inthe meantime either, as they had an Esky or two on the bus.

Wayne Hartley made the mistake of turning up to the social inuniform—complete with peaked cap, which somebody souveniredwhile the Chief was busy cooking for 200 people. Later it was restoredto its owner.5

Another event, the Childers Multicultural Festival, held on Sunday30 July 2000, provided a further respite from the sense of tragedy. Floraltributes to the fifteen backpackers who had perished were laid on abench seat in front of the hostel. A temporary plywood wall screenedthe shell of the building from the street. A crowd of 30 000 peopleenjoyed a cool and slightly overcast day as they walked among thedozens of stalls in the closed-off main street. The fire brigade werepresent and chatting with passers-by. Childers was returning to normal.

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Postscript

A man who had stayed at the hostel and who was known to many of itsresidents, Robert Paul Long, was arrested five days after the fire andcharged with arson and with the murder of two of the victims. Atthe time of writing his trial is still pending. In terms of fatalities, theChilders fire matched the infamous Whisky Au Go Go nightclub fire inBrisbane in 1973.

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OOPS!

Not everything goes according to plan in the firefighting world, despitethe professionalism of the crews and the intensity of their training.Sometimes Murphy’s Law works overtime to prove that firies arehuman after all. In one or two cases in the following events the namesof the guilty have been changed to protect the innocent.

The wishing-well incident

In 1990, in the days of the Queensland Fire Service, C Shift atBundaberg station were asked to fill a wishing-well in BourbongStreet—the town’s main boulevarde—during an official ceremony. Thewell contained a layer of dry ice above some imported Irish water. Greatimportance was placed upon this symbolic fluid. The firies were askedto turn up in their best appliance and to slowly fill the well with town

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water, so that the dry ice vapour would flow dramatically over the lip ofthe well. It would provide a satisfying moment in the ceremony.

Thinking they were going to fill a large monument, the crew weresomewhat bemused to find that the well was less than a metre in diam-eter and about the same in depth. Still, unperturbed by a task that couldeasily have been completed with a garden hose, Les Von Deest ran a64-mm hose from the tank to the well. Unfortunately, the arrangementwas such that the pumper was between the well and the pump opera-tor, Dave Nugent. Dave quickly had the pump motor up to 1000 revsand was waiting for the word. Station Officer Ian Cobban signalled forthe water to flow by raising his palm upwards. Les dashed aroundto the other side of the pumper and said to Dave: ‘Go!’ Dave woundthe throttle up—but no water came. Les said: ‘There’s no water, mate.’Dave ran the throttle up another 500 revs. Ian Cobban was gettingimpatient and signalled again. ‘There’s still no bloody water, Dave,’Les hissed. Five hundred more revs and the pumper was starting tovibrate and rock and roll on the pavement—but still no water issuedforth.

Les now dived into the cabin and saw that the gear lever for the pumpwas still in ‘neutral’, not in ‘drive’. Without hesitation he hit the lever.The 64-mm hose erupted as the full force of the pump surged waterthrough it. The hose stood on end and danced like a whirling dervish,drenching the assembled officials and almost blowing them out of theirVIP seats. Pandemonium ensued but Les collected himself long enoughto push Dave out of the way and slam the throttle off. But the damagehad been done.

Strangely enough, Station Officer Cobban was not amused. Thecrew hastily recovered their hose and rapidly departed the scene. Manyonlookers thought it was a deliberate act, and one bikie bystander saidthat it was the best show he’d ever seen in Bundaberg.1

The day the trains stopped

In August 1999, C Shift at Townsville South station were turned out inthe afternoon to a large bushfire threatening a State school and nearbygrasslands. Manning the 4WD grassfire unit were Station Officer Neil

156 OOPS!


Lesmond, driver Bob Hollis and branchman Alex Sutherland. Access tothe fire was restricted by a low railway embankment, but the crew feltthat their 4WD could cross it without difficulty. Unfortunately, theballast on the edge of the tracks had acquired the consistency of quick-sand, and the 5-tonne truck ground to a halt just as its front wheelscrossed the first set of lines. Bob put the 4WD into low ratio but,embarrassingly, to no effect. The spinning wheels only settled the truckdeeper into the ballast on one of Townsville’s busiest rail lines. As themetal chassis touched the rails it completed a circuit and triggered theboom gates. The closing of the gates led our intrepid firefighters tobelieve that a train was coming through.

Bob Hollis anxiously swivelled his head from one side to the otherlooking for locomotives bearing down on them, while Neil Lesmondand Alex Sutherland frantically ran a winch cable out from the frontof their truck. The only close purchase point was a power pole. Withina few moments they had the truck hooked up and began winching itout of trouble. However, as the cable took up the strain, the polebegan to lean dangerously toward them, bringing the high voltagepower lines perilously close to the ground. Murphy’s Law was nowin overdrive. The truck rose and then sank back on to the rails—whichthis time triggered a signal to the railway control centre that some-thing was on the tracks. The controllers immediately halted all trainsheading to the spot as the firefighters struggled frantically to free theirvehicle.

Finally they got away and hurtled off to deal with the grassfire. Whilemopping up, Neil remarked to his crew that luck must have been ontheir side—that it must have been a slack period, as no trains had comealong while they were stuck on the tracks. No sooner had he said thatthan eight trains rolled slowly past, the drivers looking out of theircabin windows for the cause of the delay they’d encountered. To top itall off, as the fire was finally being doused a civilian sedan drove up tothe firefighters from the direction of the railway. The driver paused fora chat, during which he informed the crew that there was a side roadnearby that allowed vehicles to avoid crossing the tracks they had cometo grief on!2

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Pigs and firies

Graham Cooke was working out of Toowoomba at the time of a firewhose after-effect was on the nose. He recalls:

We were having a busy night with grassfires and a crew respondedto one at the edge of town, near a piggery. The station officerpulled up near it, sent a team over with a branch to tackle it, andjust after they took off he heard a splash. He called out to see ifthey were okay and didn’t get a response. He yelled out again andthere was still no answer. All he heard was ‘oink, oink, oink’. Thepigs were getting stirred up. One of the firies had actually run intoa manure pond next to the piggery.

The next morning, when they returned to the station, the firiewho had gone into the pond asked for some fresh clothes to besent up from Kitchener Street. But in the meantime, the crew hadto go on parade to be dismissed. Instead of standing shoulder toshoulder with the others, this bloke was standing alone down atthe other end of the room.3

Don’t forget your gloves

Trevor Kidd learnt a painful lesson about the value of protective cloth-ing, especially gloves.

We had a fire in a big block of flats not far from this station. Rightdown the middle was a big set of steps with an iron handrail fromtop to bottom. The fire was burning at the top of the steps and wasred hot. We went up the left side and put the fire out there. Thenwe had to go over to the right-hand side. Instead of going downthe steps and up again, we hopped over the rail. The first guy overwas tall and had no drama. But I’m only a short bloke, and when Ithrew my leg over the rail, all of a sudden I realised it was bloodyhot, because my balls started burning. So then I had to make adecision to either burn my balls or grab the pipe and get off. So Igrabbed the pipe and burnt hell out of my hand. I quickly let go

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and burnt my balls again—so I was between a rock and a hardplace! I finally got over, but not before blistering my hands badly,and I had to go to hospital. Consequently I learnt a very valuablelesson.4

Burglars

There were interesting times to be had at Woodridge, south of Brisbane,as Russell Mayne discovered.

I went to a house fire and had to take in a hose line. It was a smallhouse about three feet off the ground with a little verandah at thetop of the stairs. Smoke was coming out through the windows andI was on the verandah, kneeling with my BA set on, waiting to getwater so I could go in. Next thing, there was this whack on myhead and my facemask was up across my nose. I couldn’t see any-thing because it had blocked off my right eye and my nosepiecewas up over my left eye. I thought the roof had come down on me,but a couple of seconds later I copped a beauty in the ribs and Ithought: ‘No, this ain’t the roof, there’s someone here.’ And thenthere was a second blow, and I got a third one just after that in mychest . . . Then I heard a hell of a commotion but I couldn’t seeanything because everything was all squashed up over my face.And it was a woman!

Finally one of the officers came and took her down the stairs.It was the woman who owned the house—she thought I wastrying to break in. She had been kicking me with her feet as I wascrouching down. She owned a tattoo parlour in Woodridge andwas actually a lovely sort of lady.5

A barbie at Caloundra

Neil Smith was a bit reluctant to tell this story about his own station,but he believes that most firies will commiserate with him over whathappened.

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We always have a wonderful Christmas party—you usually dowith a good team of blokes. Wives, children, everybody comesalong—tow truck operators too, because we have a great rapportwith them.

Anyway, one year we decided we were going to have a pig on aspit. We hired one of those rotisserie things and got it going atabout 10 o’clock. It was going fine and we put a bit of oil on thepig, and then at 11 o’clock a bit more oil. At 12 o’clock a bit moreoil, and a bit more oil again at 1 o’clock. At 3 o’clock we were outon a call . . . and whooof! Up went the oil. When we got back, thewhole bloody workshop was on fire! We went in and put it outand, of course, we had burnt bloody pig on the spit that night forChristmas dinner. We had to put a big tarp up in the workshop sowe wouldn’t show anybody that we’d nearly burnt our own placedown.6

Sorry, Chief

As a very junior firefighter, in the days before the fire services amalga-mation, Neil Smith discovered a novel way to bring yourself to theattention of your superior officer.

I went to my first real fire over at Kings Beach. It was a tiny littlethree-bedroom house with front stairs and back stairs and a centralhallway from one end to the other. The fire was going and the oldchief officer told me to go to the front and get into it, and he wouldgo around the back and check it out. The front door was locked, sothe deputy chief officer told me to kick it in and give the fire a squirt.I got the hose—it was a control branch—and my number three saidhe would kick the door open for me. When he did, I hit the branchand let it go flat out. The jet went straight down the hallway andknocked the chief officer right off the back stairs! 7

160 OOPS!


COURAGE UNDER FIRE

When a crew arrive at a structural fire, especially a house fire, andsomeone tells them that people are missing, the moment of truth hasarrived. The operation switches immediately to search and rescue. It’snot a time for standing back and ‘putting the wet stuff on the red stuff ’,but for firefighters to don their BA sets, grab a high pressure hose ifthere’s time, and advance into the building. Ray Eustace of Mary-borough recalls such a moment at a house fire in Ipswich. They hadalready established their hose lines when a girl told the firies that hertwo brothers were inside the burning building.

It was an old house, on fire from end to end. The guys redirecteda hose over us, and we went in with our BA sets on and we wereshitting ourselves. I bumped into a body as I crawled up the bigwide hallway. The other firie, Graham Knight, had missed it, so Iclapped my hands and he came back to me. We lifted and dragged

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this big bloke out on the grass and his body was just a mass of hugeblisters—face, back, hands, everywhere. We couldn’t go back in,because by then it was a total inferno.

When the fire was out I went back in, and I saw this black stiffsitting up on the end of the bed. I couldn’t figure it out. There wasa window behind his bed and I thought: ‘Why didn’t he jump outof the window?’ But crawling into that inferno was somethingelse.

Trevor Kidd experienced a similar moment when he and his crewturned out to a house fire in Campbell Street, Rockhampton. In factTrevor was a ‘spare officer’ that night and turned out as part of the fire-fighting crew. They had saved an old woman in the house but there wasstill a young girl missing.

We heard her whimpering, but then she wasn’t whimpering anymore. So Peter Cook and I zoomed around to the back of thehouse, which was now starting to get very hot as well. We took ahigh pressure Case 1 and went into the kitchen. The smoke wasdown low and we started searching . . . The fire was rolling like awave from the front of the house and going out the back, andpulsating as it was doing so—it was getting ready to flashover.

I was about to grab Peter and say, ‘Let’s go’, because it wasgetting dangerous. But luckily he’d forgotten to put his gloves onand as he was feeling past the fridge he touched this little girl’shair. She had crawled in between the fridge and a cupboard andwas lying there unconscious. Just by chance, and with no gloveson, Peter had felt the hair fibre. So we bundled her up and broughther out, the ambos worked on her and we went back to fightingthe fire. Saving that little girl is probably one of my best memoriesas a firefighter.

Sometimes not even the courage of the firefighters can avert tragedy.On one occasion Peter Beauchamp was working on shift out ofBrisbane’s Annerley station. It was 7.30 a.m. and they were turned outto a high-set house on fire at nearby Highgate Hill.

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Flames were coming out of every window. A woman was yellingon the steps: ‘My kids, my kids!’ We just grabbed a line and racedinside—no BA sets on—and quickly hit the fire and knocked itdown. There were two kids: one about eighteen months and theother about three. The eldest was sitting on the floor in an uprightposition and the baby was lying on its face on the bed. The heatwas so intense it burnt their hair back to the skull and they lookedlike porcelain dolls . . . poor little babes. We covered them overwith a blanket and killed the fire. Most of the troops then just satout on the ground—some were crying. They related to it stronglybecause it could have been their own kids.

The cause was a gas stove. The mother had turned it on andwas about to light it when the phone rang. There were five doubleadapters on top of each other in a nearby wall socket and theyprovided the ignition source and the explosion blasted through thehouse.

Russell Mayne, working in Brisbane on relief, found himself in aposition involving risk management and clear judgement.

A chicken factory was over the road and I was called acrossurgently because they had a bloke lying in the cold room. I couldsee him through the glass. He’d been using a mechanical disccutter and he was lying on the floor and he was blue. Everyone wasjust standing around looking at me—the ‘you’re a fireman, whatare you going to do?’ kind of thing. I just took a deep breath andran in and dragged him out. By that time our truck was there withthe oxy-viva and we got to work on him, successfully. He wasasphyxiated with carbon monoxide because of using a petrolmotor in an enclosed area. As soon as I saw him, I knew whatit was.

The next day Russell was back at Kemp Place station and was paradedbefore the chief officer and disciplinary board. They were going tothrow the book at him for not using a BA set in that type of rescue. Thechief said: ‘Fireman Mayne, what have you got to say for yourself?’

Russell replied: ‘Not much. The only thing I know is that there’s a

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wife out there who still has a husband and three kids who still have afather. And they wouldn’t have him if I hadn’t done what I did.’

The board members all looked at each other, then the chief said:‘Very well, you’re excused.’

Years later, Russell says:

I couldn’t just stand there, I wasn’t going to wait until somebodyelse got there. I took an informed risk . . . a calculation that I couldget in, pick him up and get out, all in one breath. He was biggerthan me—I was quite proud of myself! But it was a smooth floor.I weighed all this up, though I didn’t have much time to make adecision. When you arrive at a scene it’s all about making a quick,informed decision and getting on with your plan of action. It’s nota time for dithering, it’s usually a time for rapid reaction—espe-cially at a fire.

But ‘diving in’ can be dangerous—and scary, as Wayne McLennanfound out one night. A boat was sinking at a marina and his TownsvilleSouth crew had turned out. Being the youngest, he was ‘volunteered’ toenter the dark water to see if anyone was aboard the boat, which waswell on its way to the bottom of the harbour. He stripped down to hisdungarees and went in, having to find his way by sense of touch. Waynerecalls: ‘My “mates” were really helpful, yelling out to me to look outfor sharks! In the cabin some floating toilet paper bumped into me andreally scared me.’ But there was no one on the boat.

As the preceding two events show, not all dangerous incidents facedby crews involve an actual fire. However, the threat of it can certainlystart the adrenalin pumping. Peter Beauchamp was involved in aHazmat (hazardous material) incident that could have had enormousrepercussions were it not for the brave actions of the firefighters. Whena very large above-ground fuel tank split at New Farm near the BrisbaneRiver, Peter was working with the BA unit at Roma Street.

The tank had dropped its load in the bund, which was almostoverflowing. We had to try and control the spill and decant thebund. There was peak hour traffic and heaps of high-octanepetrol! We had to close the Gateway Bridge; we had firies dropping



foam over the bund, but stemming the flow was a drama. We hadtwenty or so sand-filled bags and had to try and get them into thesplit in the tank. To do that we had to carry them through rawpetrol and hope like shit that the crews kept the foam up. It was‘heart in mouth’ stuff, quite a frightening little exercise. It took30 hours to decant the bund and deal with the split. The clothingwe used to have then was pretty ordinary and offered little protec-tion if the fuel had gone up.

A big one: the Cairns BLEVE

One of the most dangerous situations a firefighter can face is a boilingliquid expanding vapour explosion, commonly called a BLEVE. Theseincidents occur infrequently and usually are the result of a liquid orliquefied petroleum gas being ignited and heated and then, when theboiling and expanding liquid can longer be confined within its con-tainer, exploding with tremendous force. Small BLEVEs occur whenshock absorbers on cars explode in a car fire. Large LPG explosions haveoccurred around the world. One in Mexico City was so devastating thatit destroyed hundreds of houses, killed 300 people and injured 7000more.

On 17 August 1987, in a rail siding in the Boral gas yard in BundaStreet, Cairns, firies were faced with Australia’s biggest BLEVE. Theyard was the site for storage and distribution of town gas. This came inby rail and road and was decanted into storage tanks (called bullets) atthe site. On the 17th, a fully charged rail tanker carrying approximately40 000 litres of LPG was on the siding. At about 3.15 p.m. a GasCorporation employee climbed on to the top of the tanker to connectflexible discharge hoses to the liquid and vapour outlets. As he com-pleted this task a hose came loose, discharging liquid freely and forminga visible vapour cloud which quickly spread across the yard. The excessflow valve failed to operate, allowing the liquid discharge to continue.Yard employees immediately closed valves to isolate the tanker andbegan to evacuate the site. One of them told the switchboard operatorto call the Cairns Fire Brigade (the incident occurred in the days of theformer service structure).



When the vapour cloud reached some old weatherboard houses onthe yard’s western boundary, it was ignited by the pilot flame of a gas-fired hot water system in one of them—about 43 metres from the tanker.The flame flashed through the vapour cloud and a fierce fire developedaround the tanker. LPG was escaping with a deafening roar. The volumeof the cloud was such that its ignition was a comparatively violent event,described by some witnesses as an ‘explosion’.1

At 3.22 p.m. the Cairns brigade received several 000 calls to a ‘gasfire’, an ‘explosion’, ‘a very large fire’. Russell Matthews was on B Shiftat Gatton Street station. He remembers a callout for two pumps; he wasdriving the second appliance. ‘By the time we got to Aumuller Street,about a kilometre away, we could see the plume of the smoke and thetop of the flame shooting out of it. I thought: “Oh God!” My heart wasracing.’ Russell had been to a few structural fires before, but nothinglike this. He was fascinated by the towering plume of smoke, and after-wards couldn’t recall too much being said in the front of the Acco truck.

The first appliance,with a manning of one and three, went into theyard and parked behind one of the buildings. The chief officer, hisdeputy and another officer followed in a staff car. Their immediatereaction on arriving at the scene was to call out every available piece ofequipment, including the hydraulic platform, and off-duty men. Theyalso advised the ambulance service and electricity authority of thecatastrophe that was unfolding. It was now four minutes from the timethe first 000 call was made. When I asked Russell how long he thoughtit took he replied, ‘Probably about 10 million heartbeats!’ Russell’ssub-station officer told him to park out in the street. The crew wouldbe used as ‘manpower’ until the second pump was required.

More than half of the rail tanker was now enveloped in an extremelyfierce fire. Just as the first pump was pulling into the yard, gas escapingfrom the safety valve had ignited, producing a vertical jet of flame risingabout 15 metres above the tanker, accompanied by thick black smoke.LPG was continuing to flow from the tanker’s outlet, and there wasdirect flame contact all the way round the circumference of the tanker,except at one end. The wind was a light southerly breeze; the crewswere upwind on the southeast side of the fire.

Russell Matthews reported to the yard, where people had to shoutinto each other’s ears to be heard above the roar. ‘I met the officer off



the first pump, the one inside the yard. I had my BA set on and he askedme to try to turn on the drenchers over the rail tanker that was on fire.I went in towards the control valves but was forced back about30 metres because it was just too hot.’

A hose line with a variable branch had been run out from the firstpump and was being manned by Mal Armstrong and Steve Reynolds.The only thing giving cover from the incredible heat was a large con-crete pipe about 24 metres from the tanker. The branchmen kneltbehind this and applied a stream of water at where they thought thetop of the centre of the tanker would be. A second line was estab-lished shortly afterwards from a hydrant in Bunda Street, opposite theentrance.

Everything the firies were doing was spot on. They were upwind,behind cover, clear of the axis of the tanker and directing water to try tocool the venting area.

After being forced back from the drenchers, Russell was nowinvolved in getting more equipment into action.

Dan Twomey, the officer off my pumper, had started getting theground monitor down with the help of another firefighter,Graham Allen. I took over the duty of setting up the hose lines tothe monitor. It sits down on the deck and you can back away fromit if you have to. I got one line of hose into it and then, as I wasgetting the second line in, the tanker went BANG! I was facing awayfrom it and the blast pushed me over on to my face.2

The BLEVE occurred at about 3.30 p.m., only four minutes after thecrews had arrived. The explosion, which was accompanied by anenormous fireball, was heard on the northern beaches of Cairns, some15 kilometres away. For Steve Reynolds and Mal Armstrong, who wereonly 24 metres from the tanker when it blew, the blast was horrendous.Steve told the Cairns Post: ‘We got a fair sort of shock from it [the blast].We were more or less engulfed in the fireball. I realised I was on fire, sothe quickest thing to do was to get out.’3

Unfortunately, when the two men ‘dropped and rolled’ in an attemptto extinguish the flames on their turnout coats, the grass was also onfire.



Kevin Byrne (later to become mayor of Cairns) was working in athird floor office of the Cairns Regional Development Board, some2 kilometres away. He remembers:

There was this almighty explosion and the whole high-rise five-storey building shook. I thought: ‘Christ, what’s happening here?’I’ve been in an earthquake in Papua New Guinea, and this wasobviously not a quake. I immediately thought that a ship hadblown up in the harbour. Then I saw the fireball erupt and Irealised it was the Boral gas area.

Pat Hopper and Pat Scanlan were off duty and helping a fellow firiewith some house building about 15 kilometres from town. Scanlanrecalls: ‘We heard it. I felt the ground tremor and someone said: “Gee,that’s a big cane fire!” We headed back to town and came in to thestation to see if they needed a hand.’ A report in the Cairns Post claimedthat Mr Alan Scullen and his wife heard the explosion in Innisfail,75 kilometres away. Veteran Melbourne newspaperman Jack Ayling,who was on a visit to Cairns, saw the incident. He told the Cairns Post:‘In my 47 years as a newspaperman I’ve covered some of the biggestfires in Australia, but I’ve never seen anything like that in my life—itwas like Hiroshima and Nagasaki all over again.’4

The fireball that filled the sky above the rail yard was several hundredmetres long and a hundred metres wide, and it lasted for severalseconds. It was truly awesome. The rail tanker had blown apart. Thehalf that was being superheated opened out into a flat sheet. The otherhalf, about 7 metres long and just over 2 metres in diameter, was pro-pelled 109 metres northeast, in line with its long axis. It flew in a lowtrajectory, hitting the ground at least twice along the way. The base plate,bogeys and lower section of the tanker were left lying in the middle ofthe yard. The main blast effect was concentrated against the wall of abrewery on the southwestern edge of the yard—that is, away from thedirection in which the tank section was propelled.5

Every window in the area for a distance of at least 100 metres wasshattered, causing minor injuries to some bystanders. Such was theintensity of the heat from the fireball that the glass was sucked outwardsand upwards by a ‘convection upsurge’ due more to the fireball than to



the blast itself. A heavy railway wagon was blown on its side and longsections of railway line were buckled. Several cars and a truck weredestroyed by secondary fires at the brewery. A section of the tankerrigging, weighing several hundred kilograms, crashed through the roofof a transport company shed (which had been evacuated momentsbefore), causing severe damage. The flying metal then ripped a deepgouge in the middle of Dutton Street just over 160 metres from theexplosion point. An elderly man who lived in one of the weatherboardhouses near the yard received burns to 70 per cent of his body, and dieda few days later in the Royal Brisbane Hospital.

Back in the yard, Russell Matthews picked himself up and staggeredout into Bunda Street where he helped Mal Armstrong, who was‘stumbling a bit, with his turnout coat still smouldering’. An off-dutyfirie, Roy Devine, had seen the BLEVE and come down to help.Russell says: ‘He’d started up the pump and had the hose ready to putwater on us. He was only in his T-shirt and thongs, and I’m glad he wasthere.’

Russell was burnt on the back of his hands and on one ear, andsomehow a blob of liquid gas had got into his boot and burnt the sideof his foot. But it was worse for Armstrong and Reynolds, as Russellexplains:

Mal and Steve were burnt quite severely and had to go to the burnsunit in Brisbane. They spent a lot of time down there and an evenlonger time wearing pressure bandages and so on. (They were offwork for just over six months; I was off about twelve weeks.) Malwas full of skin grafts and it ruined all his ‘artwork’—he wasex-navy and had a lot of tattoos.

As a result of the injuries sustained by the BLEVE firefighters, awhole raft of changes were made in protective equipment. At the time,according to Russell, the firies didn’t have personal-issue gloves; therewere welder’s gloves in the trucks’ lockers. The brigade helmets weremade of plastic, with no visor, and looked more like a constructionworker’s helmet.

Meanwhile, the explosion and its enormous fireball had startedsecondary fires within and outside the yard, singed a number of houses



and the National Hotel, and set fire to a brewery shed and even to therailway sleepers in the siding. Some of the fires were more than100 metres from the explosion. And LPG gas tanks and cylinders wereruptured in the yard. The other firefighters resolutely launched into theattack. Firecom reports indicated that they were into the secondary fireswithin minutes. The bravery of the firefighters battling the blaze afterthe BLEVE is illustrated by the fact that they fought to cool the fires inthe yard knowing that another explosion was highly probable. It tookuntil well after 6.00 p.m. before the last fire was declared out. Crewsvisited the site during the night. The damage bill for the fire was esti-mated at between $5 million and $7 million dollars.

Steve Reynolds deserves the last word. Despite being badly burnt andevacuated to hospital, he said later: ‘The real heroes were the guys whostayed behind. It would have taken real guts to stay in there.’6

Mates

There are two senior firefighters in Rockhampton who are getting closeto retirement. They have been working together for 30 years. They aregood mates and they know each other’s family well.

Brian Edmonds and David Semple started a shift at 6.00 p.m. on11 August 1996. At about 1.30 a.m. they were called to a fire at the CityHeart Backpackers Hostel in the centre of Rockhampton. Even thoughhe was a station officer, Brian was driving the second appliance on theturnout, owing to a shortage of staff.

When they arrived at the fire ground, the first car crew had alreadydone a search of the building and the seven occupants of the hostel hadbeen accounted for. The City Heart Backpackers was a typical hostel:an old building, brick construction, tall ceilings, and laundry andkitchen out at the back. Thick black acrid smoke was billowing out ofthe front door but no flames were evident. Brian and Dave wereteamed together on a Case 3 line and took the branch to make an inter-nal attack down the main hallway toward the rear, where they had beentold there was a fire. Brian was branchman and Dave was his backupand number three.

They advanced in their BA sets, passing another firefighter, who



said to them: ‘It’s all in the back room.’ So Brian and Dave movedalong the hallway, which had small cubicle-type rooms off each side.They had gone at least 30 metres into the building when a couplingto a length of hose had caught in a doorway near the foyer area andDave went back to loosen it so that they could advance closer to thekitchen area. Brian found it was not easy to see: ‘The lights were stillon when we went down the hallway, but then they must have goneout because I could no longer see Dave. But we were still able tocommunicate.’

Moving through thick smoke, the two firefighters reached the end ofthe hallway and were confronted by a small but fierce fire in the kitchen.Brian immediately started attacking with a jet to knock it down. Thiswas not easy, as Brian explains: ‘We could hear the fire working but wecouldn’t see it, the smoke was so thick.’ Dave was sheltered to an extentby Brian’s solid 115 kilograms and 183-centimetre frame. But he feltvery uncomfortable as they continued to attack the fire.

Brian was halfway into the room and I was just standing backsupporting the line—probably level with the door. I said to Brian:‘Gee, this is getting hot.’ I’ve been to hot fires before but this wassuper hot, and not like anything I’d struck before. I said: ‘I thinkwe’d better get out, something’s wrong.’ There was a lot of noiseabove us and we were a long way in, and I thought, discretionbeing the better part of valour, we should get out.7

The fire crews out on the street could see that the building wasgetting ready to ignite and radioed the two men that they should get out.The pair responded and left the hose line where it was in order to followit through the blinding black smoke, which was now down to a metreoff the floor. They had to crawl along with the hose line between theirknees. Then, after a moment or two, the extremely hot unburnt gasesand smoke particles ignited in a classic flashover. Television footagefilmed from the street would show the air being drawn into the pulsat-ing smoke and a huge sheet of flame bursting 20 metres out above theheads of the pump operator and other firies.

Inside the hostel, Brian Edmonds was slammed backwards by theflashover blast.



A rush of hot air pushed me back on to Dave. I was burnt aroundthe neck and ears right then. I weigh 19 stone and it was a hugeforce of air. I thought: ‘Well, nothing is going to stop me now!’I went head down and arse up and followed the hose out along thehallway, and I was going to go straight through whatever was there.I kept going, thinking: ‘Dave’s got to be alright and in front of me,because I haven’t run into him.’ If he had gone down I would havecrawled over the top of him.

But the flashover blast had thrown David Semple into a side roomwhere he slammed into a wall head first, leaving a neat circularhole where his helmet hit. He was probably knocked unconscious for afew moments, and was now in an area of extremely hot burning gases.But when Brian reached the front door he heard Dave screaming out.Without hesitation, he turned around and crawled back along the hoseline looking for his mate. The smoke by this time was well below ametre off the floor.

David Semple was in a lot of strife. He recalls:

I was disoriented. I followed the wall around and couldn’t find thedoorway. There was thick smoke, fire was dropping off the ceiling,mattresses were burning. Everywhere I looked there was fire allaround me. Molten lead from old roofing nails was droppingthrough the ceiling. It was super hot. I checked my mask and mykit and still had plenty of air, and I was trying to stay calm andremember my training. I couldn’t think straight and had to pullmyself together. I thought, ‘Well, hang on, Brian hasn’t gone pastme’, so I started yelling to Brian with a few choice words. I couldhear him and he could hear me, but I couldn’t see him. I washurting like hell, which didn’t help, but finally Brian came into theroom, grabbed me and put the hose in my hand.

The building was now becoming fully involved, with fire eruptingthrough all the rooms. The two mates started their painful journeyback through the flames and smoke. Brian says: ‘I had to go backbecause if something had happened to him . . . I couldn’t have livedwith that.’



When the pair exited the inferno they staggered out and collapsedfrom the severe heat. Dave was in a bad way. He recalls: ‘Once I gotinto clear air at the doorway I went straight over the top of Brian—after that I don’t remember too much. But after a while on thefootpath, and some oxygen, I came round a bit.’ Brian adds: ‘Dave’sclothes were so hot they couldn’t touch them; they couldn’t take hiscoat off and he was cooking.’ The steel clasps on his BA set were toohot to unclip, and the on/off switch was fused ‘on’. His helmetand heat shield (the visor) were partly melted. Scientists at Queens-land University later did tests on the damaged equipment and estimatedthat Dave had been exposed to temperatures in excess of 550 degreesCelsius for about 8–10 seconds.8

His burns were mostly third degree. He recalls: ‘When I finally tookmy gloves off, the skin started to peel off and I was in a fair bit of pain.’

Brian had also been burnt, but was only just beginning to realise it.

The ambos gave me oxygen and sat me down. I was starting toburn—because you gradually cook—and my neck started to reallysting then. They said they would take me to the hospital too. I wentover and looked at Dave and he was all red and had skin hangingoff him.

The firefighters were evacuated to Rockhampton Hospital, wherethey decided they should ring their families. Brian says:

When we got to the hospital they had me in a chair and Dave waslying there. He asked, ‘Can you ring my wife up?’, and I said:‘Sure, what will I tell her?’ He said: ‘Tell her we’ve been to a fireand we’re in hospital, but I’m alright.’ I rang up and said: ‘We’vehad a bit of a problem and we’re at the hospital . . .’ (Then, in anaside to David—What will I say now?) ‘Don’t panic, we’re alright.’(What will I say now?) I was relaying his messages and then all of asudden they grabbed me and put me on the table. Then I hadwires and tubes hanging off me and I thought I was going to die.

Dave’s blood pressure was up around 200 or something andat daylight the doctor said about him: ‘We’re going to have toput this man in intensive care.’ I said: ‘Shit, you’d better ring his



missus, because he’s supposed to be alright, and now you’re goingto put him in intensive care!’ She hasn’t believed a word I say eversince.

David Semple was now at the start of a long, torturous road. ‘Theyshifted me to the burns unit in Brisbane the next day, because theydidn’t have the gear to look after me in Rocky. Brian had been dis-charged and came to see me as I was being wheeled out to the plane.’

At the airport, Brian said to Dave: ‘Well, that’s two; I don’t want to bearound when the third one happens.’ They had both been caught by theblast at the Shark Club bombing seven years before.

Brian Edmonds was decorated for his bravery in the hostel fire by theState Governor, with a Commendation for Brave Conduct. I wouldhave given him the Star of Courage.

Their equipment saved the lives of Brian and Dave and allowed Brianto rescue his mate. If they had been wearing the clothing that wasaround at the time of the Cairns BLEVE they would not have survived.The importance of working in pairs was again demonstrated. The valueof training in overcoming stressful situations was illustrated when Daverefused to panic, checked his BA and used the hose as a life line, evenwhen he was looking death in the eye. But what was exemplified mostof all in this incident was the trust between two firefighters who wereprepared to put themselves at great risk to save a mate.

Although, thankfully, it didn’t happen in this case, the death of a fire-fighter can have a greater impact than the loss of a close relative.Firefighters who place their lives on the line take the loss of a colleagueeven harder: they lose their sense of ‘invincibility’, they are brutallyreminded of their own mortality. Peter Beauchamp observes: ‘A shift islike a second family and you look after each other every time you go intobattle. When we lost Chris Warburton at a job in 1989, the shift brokeup and went their separate ways, like some families break up after adeath in the family.’



THE ENEMY

During the course of their career, firefighters will face their enemy onmany occasions. As for any good combatant, it is important that theyknow their enemy, for if they don’t they will fall victim to its power, itsvagaries and its dangerously lethal character. They must fully under-stand its properties and what makes it start and grow and what kills it.This account contains a brief and hopefully not too technical glimpse atthe properties, character and behaviour of fire.

Properties of fire

Fire is about combustion. Combustion is a rapid process that releasesheat and light. Because fire gives out energy we say it is exothermic(exo: gives out; thermo: heat). Combustion is a chemical reaction involv-ing fuel and oxygen.

Fuel

Fuels are any combustible material; that is, anything that can burn. Theycan be solids, liquids or gases. A fuel is on fire if it is undergoing com-bustion. When a candle burns, the wax is being consumed, not the wick:the wax is undergoing combustion, reacting chemically with oxygenand air. The candle’s wax is fuel for the fire—the flame. Combustionreactions also require heat throughout the whole reaction process.The heat produced in combustion sustains the combustion; that is, as

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firefighters say, ‘combustion is self-sustaining’. If heat is no longerpresent in the process, combustion will cease.

So, for a fire to occur, there must be three things: fuel (somethingthat is capable of burning), oxygen and heat. If any one of these threeelements is missing, combustion will not occur. In combustion, solidsand liquid fuels give off vapours (gases). It is the burning of thesevapours that form the real danger during combustion. For example,after a house fire the wooden wall struts will often be merely blackenedand charred—they have been burnt to that extent—but the gasesemitted from the material are what has actually been on fire.

Oxygen

The oxygen required for everyday fires is found in air. Air is a mixtureof gases and is made up almost entirely of nitrogen (approx. 78 per cent)and oxygen (approx. 21 per cent). Other minor gases make up theremaining 1 per cent. But oxygen is the essential element.

For combustion to occur, oxygen must mix with the vapours or gasesfrom the fuels in the correct proportion. If there is too much fuelvapour compared to oxygen, we say that the mixture is too rich and willnot burn. If there is not enough fuel vapour mixing with oxygen, we saythat the mixture is too lean and will not burn. For combustion to occur,the air–fuel mixture must be within the flammable limits of the fuel.For example, carbon monoxide is a gas that can burn. However, it willonly burn if it is between about 12 per cent and 74 per cent of theair–fuel mixture.

Perhaps the most common example of a correct mixture is in cars.The carburettor of a car controls the air–fuel mixture so that com-bustion can occur efficiently. If the carburettor receives too muchfuel—if the mixture is too rich—the system will probably ‘flood’ andnot be able to achieve ignition. If the carburettor doesn’t receiveenough fuel, the mixture is too lean and again combustion will not bepossible.

Every substance has its own flammable limits. These are determinedin a laboratory. Even rock will burn (viz: lava) if it has enough heat.

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Heat

Heat is a form of energy, which, if intense enough, can cause fuel toignite. Temperature is different from heat. Temperature is a measure ofhow heat energy is absorbed in a particular substance. The differencebetween heat and temperature is demonstrated if you boil a cup of waterfor two minutes and then do this with a cup of salt crystals. They bothreceive the same amount of heat but the water will be hotter after thetwo minutes. Heat capacity is the term used to describe the amount ofheat required to raise the temperature of a substance. A large heat capa-city means that it takes a lot of heat to raise the substance’s temperature,just like the salt crystals. If you wanted to increase the temperature ofthe salt a lot more heat would be required.

As the temperature of a liquid fuel increases, the amount of vapourgiven off increases. Notice that petrol smells more in hot weather. Thisis because there is more vapour as the temperature increases.

The lowest temperature at which vapour is produced from a liquid toform a flammable mixture with air is called the flash point of the liquid.For example, petrol has a very low flash point, minus 42.9 degreesCelsius. At any temperature above this, petrol produces enough vapourto form a flammable mixture with air. Heating (fuel) oil has a far higherflash point, 54.4 degrees Celsius.

When a substance is at its flash point and is ignited, it will flash; it willnot continue to burn. This is because there is not enough heat to causea continuing supply of vapour from the fuel to sustain the combustion.

The lowest temperature of a substance at which sustained combus-tion can be ignited is that substance’s ignition temperature. This iscalled the fire point. The ignition temperature of a substance is higherthan its flash point because at the flash point the temperature is not highenough to produce a continual supply of vapour to sustain combustion.However, at the ignition temperature, or fire point, a continual supplyof vapour is produced to sustain combustion.

Nature of flame

There are many things happening within the flames of combustion. Itis the place where the combustion reaction occurs. A common candle is

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a good way to observe the nature of flame. The region closest to thewick contains unburnt vapours. This is where the vapours concentratefrom the solid, waxy fuel and where the mixture is too rich to burn.When combustion is ‘complete’ all the fuel is burnt to invisible carbondioxide gas and water vapour. Incomplete combustion occurs when notenough oxygen and heat are present to convert the reactants totally tocarbon dioxide and water. Instead, carbon monoxide, smoke, soot andother matter are produced. In a candle incomplete combustion occursin the yellow flame region. If the flame is sooty then combustion isincomplete. The blue flame region is the hottest region. It is where thecombustion is occurring most efficiently.

Chain carriers

Combustion is a chemical chain reaction that occurs within the flamesof combustion. In this chain reaction the reactants (fuel and oxygen)begin to react slowly to form temporary substances called chain carriers.These chain carriers are vital in the combustion process and they arereferred to as the fourth element of combustion. (The others are fuel,oxygen and heat.) Chain carriers are very reactive substances. Thesehighly reactive chain carriers react rapidly with more fuel and oxygen toproduce even more carriers and so on. This process is referred to as achain reaction because it accelerates: it starts off slowly but then getsfaster as more and more chain carriers are produced. This processcontinues until the fuel is nearly all burnt, when the fire begins to die.

Chain carriers are vital for combustion. Without them the combustionwould occur only very slowly. Rusting is an example of a very slowprocess of combustion—rusting is a chemical reaction between metal(e.g. iron) and oxygen. Rusting is so slow that it isn’t easily observed bythe naked eye. During this chain reaction heat is released, which is neededto sustain the process, and the products of combustion are produced.1

Extinguishment of fires

The processes of extinguishing fires are starvation (removal of fuel fromthe combustion reaction), smothering (removal of oxygen), cooling(removal of heat) and inhibition (removal of chain carriers).

178 THE ENEMY


In a bushfire, for example, starvation is achieved by cutting or diggingfirebreaks and thus removing the fuel source, or by back-burning sothat when a fire advances to the back-burnt area there is no fuel left forcombustion.

The capping of burning oil wells in Kuwait (following OperationDesert Storm against Iraq) is a good example of smothering. When aburning oil well is capped, oxygen is no longer available and the fire isextinguished. In other cases fire blankets are draped over a fire to separateit from oxygen in the atmosphere. Once the amount of oxygen under theblanket drops sufficiently, combustion will cease. Foam is another toolused by firefighters to smother combustion. Foam poured over the top ofa fire prevents oxygen in the atmosphere from reaching it.

Cooling by the direct application of water is the most commonmethod used by firefighters to extinguish a fire; known among the firiesas putting ‘the wet stuff on the red stuff ’. When water is applied to a fireit absorbs some of the fire’s heat. If the water is able to absorb heat fasterthan the fire can produce it, the fire begins to cool. If the fire coolssufficiently, eventually the temperature of the fire will drop below itsignition point, then below its flash point. Once the temperature of thefuel falls below its flash point, it is generally regarded as safe from com-bustion. If water is applied slowly such that it only removes heat slowlyfrom a fire (slower than the rate at which the fire produces the heat),then it won’t cool and extinguish the fire.

Carbon tetrachloride was once used to extinguish fires by inhibition,but its use was discontinued as it produced toxic gases as by-products.Up until 1993, the most widely used substance for inhibition of a firewas BCF (bromo chlorodi fluoro methane). However, being a chloro-fluorocarbon (CFC), its use has also been discontinued because of itsdepleting effect on the ozone layer.

Character of fire

Backdraught

Imagine you are at a house fire. Inside the house is a room whose door isclosed. You open the door and enter the room. It is very, very hot. Red hot!The windows are closed. There is a lot of dark, sooty smoke around the

THE ENEMY 179


room. Being a typical room in a house, there are many fuels present—wood, carpet, curtains etc. There are no visible signs of flame. Occasionallysmall puffs can be heard. Suddenly the windows break and the roombursts into flame. You are engulfed in the middle of a raging fire.

This is the result of excess product which, by itself, was too rich toburn because there was too much smoke in the room. The room atmos-phere was choked with very heavy smoke and gases. But when airentered through the broken windows it brought the atmosphere in theroom down to the upper flammability limit, and a backdraught occurred.The atmosphere was too rich before that because there wasn’t enoughoxygen in there for anything to burn correctly, but as soon as the rightamount of oxygen entered the room, you had instant backdraught.

In other words, incomplete combustion was occurring at first. Hadthe combustion been complete there’d be no soot or dark smoke.Instead, invisible carbon dioxide and water vapour would be producedand there would be flames. When oxygen entered the room when thewindows broke, both reactants (fuel and oxygen) were present, andthere was enough heat (the room was very hot) to cause ignition. Assoon as the oxygen rushed in, the stalled combustion ‘took off ’ withdevastating speed.

Firefighters often overcome a backdraught situation by allowing thebuilt-up heat and gases to escape through the roof (the firies lift tiles orpeel back roofing iron). Ensuring that the room has proper ventilationreduces the danger of a sudden gush of oxygen igniting an oxygen-deficient room.2

During my time attending the training at Lytton in Brisbane, ashipping container fitted with ‘windows’ and ‘doors’ was used todemonstrate a compartment fire and the nature of backdraught. Thecontainer was closed except for a rear door. A wood and fabric loungechair was set afire in a corner of the container. After five minutes heavyblack sooty smoke began rising to the ceiling of the container andhanging above everyone’s head. As the fire consumed the chair thesmoke level sank until it forced us to kneel to be clear of its chokingproperties. The gases being produced from the combustion are calledpyrolysis gases. Without our breathing apparatus and protective clothingwe would have had to leave the container after only a few minutes.

We were under the guidance of Barry Salway. Above our heads it was

180 THE ENEMY


about 500 degrees Celsius. What we had in the container was an over-pressure region, an under-pressure region and a neutral plane.Generally, below the neutral plane there’s an area of cool gas where afirefighter can survive. Above the neutral plane is the over-pressureregion where the hot, combustible gases gather. So firefighters need tostay under the neutral plane, whether it is a metre or half a metre off thefloor, or even less. For this purpose, firefighters have padding in theknees of their fire-retardant overtrousers, but sometimes the gases maybe so low that a firefighter can’t even crawl without being in danger.Salway told the recruits: ‘I have been into buildings where the neutralplane has been as low as 30 centimetres off the ground.’

Finally the shipping container was evacuated and its back door wassuddenly thrown open, introducing oxygen into the combustionprocess. The gases suddenly ignited and, because of the high buildup ofpyrolysis gases they exploded in a powerful blast that sent a training‘dummy’ flying backwards at least 15 metres. If it had been a firefighterhe would have suffered extensive burns to his equipment and exposedflesh and suffered from the blast. Without breathing apparatus he wouldhave had damage to his face and lungs.

Flashover

A flashover occurs when a room or other area becomes heated to thepoint that flames flash over an entire surface (like a ceiling). Everythingin the room reaches its ignition temperature and is so hot that it willfully ignite.

It was once thought that a flashover was the result of flammablegases being released from items on fire in the room. It was thoughtthat these gases collected at ceiling level. When mixed with oxygen,and with the heat of the fire, the flammable gases were thought toignite, causing a flashover. However, it is now known that a flashoveris the result of intense heat building up from a fire. The heat causes allthe contents of the fire area to reach their ignition temperatures.When this happens, they all burst into flame and the area becomesfully involved in fire. An explosion will accompany a flashover if it issevere enough.3

THE ENEMY 181


Fire behaviour

A fire has several phases and most fires grow through three stages:incipient, smouldering and free-burning. During the incipient stagethere is no flame, though there is enough heat and oxygen for combus-tion to occur. In this incipient stage the surface of the fuel undergoes‘decomposition’, often noticeable by colour changes, charring etc.A good example of combustion in this stage is a piece of tissue paperbeing placed inside a hot incinerator: the tissue turns very brown,showing signs of combustion. During this stage the products of com-bustion are invisible—there is no smoke or soot.

In the smouldering stage up to about 10 per cent of the combustionproducts are visible. Smoke is produced as the fire smoulders. In thefree-burning stage the fire has ignited into flames. It is now generatingenough heat to warm the area around it.

Backdraught can occur when the products of combustion are clearlyvisible and there are no flames; it often occurs in the smouldering stage.4

The spread of fire

When a fire breaks out and reaches the heating stage, it transfers someof its heat to its surroundings. If the surroundings are flammable andoxygen is present, this heat can cause new fires to break out. Heat alwaysflows from a hot body to a cold one. An object at a high temperature isable to pass some of its heat to an object at a low temperature and thuswarm it. The three methods by which heat is transferred are conduc-tion, radiation and convection.

Heat moves through all substances by conduction. In solids, mole-cules are packed tightly together and don’t move very much, they just‘vibrate’ slightly. In liquids, molecules are spaced further apart and areable to move around. This is why liquids can flow or be stirred, unlikesolids. In gases, molecules are very spread out and move very rapidly.Conduction is most efficient in solids because the atoms and moleculesare packed closest together and heat can pass easily from one to another.Gases conduct heat very poorly because their molecules are muchfurther apart. Because gases conduct heat very slowly they are oftenused as heat insulators. Insulators are substances that conduct heat very

182 THE ENEMY


poorly. When air is trapped in substances like polystyrene, a very goodinsulator is made. Another good insulator is made when air is trappedbetween two layers of glass (double-glazed windows).

As in the case of a bar heater, heat can also be transferred by radiation.In this process heat is not transferred by one particle passing it toanother particle. Rather, in radiation, heat is ‘beamed’ directly from oneobject, through empty space, to another object. This heat energy can beabsorbed by other substances, particularly dark substances. As anexample, take two pieces of metal—one shiny and unpainted, and oneblack—that are left in the sun, side by side, for the same period of time.The dark object will be much hotter than the shiny one, as it hasabsorbed more heat from the sun’s radiation. This form of heat transferis important to firefighters in situations where, for example, a buildingon fire is close to another building. In this case, heat radiated from thefire can initiate new fires in the neighbouring building.

Convection is another process by which heat is transferred through aliquid or gas. It cannot take place in a solid. If heat is applied to thebottom of a container of liquid or gas, the liquid or gas near the bottomof the container becomes heated and rises toward the top of the con-tainer. Meanwhile, colder particles of liquid or gas sink toward thebottom. This causes a current to be set up: the particles begin to circu-late. Convection is important in many day-to-day situations, forexample hot water systems and refrigerators use this process. In a fire,convection currents can carry hot gases produced by combustionupwards through stairwells and lift shafts, spreading fire to the upperparts of the building. In turn, the cooler air sinks toward the fire replac-ing the rising hot gases. This supplies the fire with air and helps toaccelerate the burning. Because of this, fire is said to be able to ‘supplyits own air’. The result is often called a ‘mushrooming fire’.5

Bushfires

Firefighters will always be called out to bushfires. Australia is the mostbushfire prone continent on earth. Such is the nature of Australianterrain and the manner in which we have settled in it that we will alwayshave bushfires threatening the built environment. Bushfires do not

THE ENEMY 183


stand still; they move and change direction, raging across plains and uphills. Their movement depends on four things: the type, condition andarrangement of the fuel; temperature and humidity; wind speed anddirection; and terrain.

The fuel for a bushfire can be divided into five categories: trees,shrubs, grass, litter and humus (decomposing material found on theground). The condition of the fuel affects the nature and intensity of abushfire—for example, whether the fuel is moist or dry affects the waythe fire will burn. Water, as moisture in the fuel, serves to cool the fireand combustion is retarded because the amount of heat present isreduced (cooled). The arrangement of the fuel also has a major bearingon the way in which it burns. If a small fire of twigs is lit, the fire burnsrapidly. However, if the twigs are separated out, the fire will probably goout. In State forests it is quite possible to find a variety of arrange-ments—from grass to thick forest litter, steep heavily timbered slopesand dense underbrush.

Humidity is another factor in the process and relates to moisture inthe air; it will interfere with combustion. Bushfires are more likely tooccur when the air is dry.

Air and ground temperatures also affect rural fires. As the daytimetemperature rises, the risk and intensity of fire also increases. This isbecause the temperature of the fuel is raised closer to the ignition point.This means that less heat is required to start the fire. Generally, ruralfires are fiercest during the early afternoon when the daytime maximumtemperature is reached. They tend to quieten during the night astemperatures begin to fall.

The wind has two important effects on a bushfire. First, it can drivea fire forward by blowing flames toward fresh fuel. In hilly areas windscan change direction quickly, causing bushfires to change directionalmost instantly. I was caught in just such a manner when fighting abushfire in December 1968, west of Cessnock in the Hunter Valley.The fire turned and advanced with such rapidity that our truck wasovertaken by roaring flames. Acting on an unnecessary call to ‘run foryour lives’ we abandoned the truck, which was burnt to the groundand left sitting on its steel rims with absolutely nothing salvageable.When attempting to manage a bushfire, firefighters must always allowa safety margin in case the fire changes direction without warning.

184 THE ENEMY


The second effect that wind has on a fire is that it provides a continu-ous supply of oxygen. This causes the intensity of the fire to increase.Sometimes it is said that ‘large fires cause their own wind’. As the airheated by the fire rises, cooler air is drawn into the fire by convection,thus creating what appears to be its ‘own wind’.

The terrain or countryside is an important factor in bushfires and hasthe main effect on a fire’s movement. Fire is said to travel faster uphillthan down. The reason for this is related to convection. A fire must pre-heat a fuel to its ignition temperature in order that it will burn. Inconvection, heat is transferred upwards and not downwards. Hence afire travels best uphill.6

Into battle

One veteran firefighter was quoted by Vince Hinder of Toowoomba assaying: ‘There are three main causes for fire—men, women and chil-dren.’ Wherever fire breaks out, whether it be in a pan on a kitchenstove, a burst gas cylinder in an industrial plant, or a grassfire along theside of the road, the firies will be called out. The bells will go in the firestation, or a pager on an auxiliary firefighter’s belt will signal the needto respond—and immediately. During my interview with PeterBeauchamp in Cairns, he recalled the words of a firefighter named TomQuine who had served for many years. ‘He once said that “every timeour firefighters jump in those red trucks it is like going into battle”, andin a sense that’s right, because they are going to an environment that isextremely hostile.’ For Peter the analogy hits home because he had agood friend who died at a job. He has many other mates who have beenmedically ‘boarded out’ because they can no longer perform their dutiesowing to either ‘eating too much smoke’ or being injured in the courseof their duties. The fire ground is not only hostile, it is downrightdeadly, and it is not being too dramatic to say that firefighters do placetheir lives on the line every time the bells go off.

The impact of a domestic house fire on the owners is easily seen bythe casual bystander. The memorabilia of a lifetime will often bedestroyed by the flames or ruined forever by the smoke and water usedto extinguish the blaze. Like victims of a cyclone, the family’s lives will

THE ENEMY 185


never be the same again. If they lose more than their possessions, theimpact will be severe and very long lasting. Peter Beauchamp has beento many house fires and says:

Personal tragedy is always the downside and house fires are still thehardest to deal with, because you can relate to the victims—theloss of memorabilia, photographs, albums and so on. Going to jobsis an adrenalin boost for most firefighters, but tragedy is thedownside.

What makes it worse for the firies, when they do come across atragedy in which someone has lost a close relative or friend, is thediscovery that the house has no preventative measures such as smoke orheat detectors. This frustrates firefighters a great deal. Graham Cookeof Dalby has an auxiliary firefighter who often gives public safety talksto people in the bush. The auxiliary has a saying when talking about theneed for smoke alarms in the house: ‘You can spend $9 on this smokealarm here, or $3000 for that burial casket over there.’ Graham addswith a wry smile: ‘Sometimes you need to kick the door down to get themessage across.’

Amen to that.

186 THE ENEMY


QFRS REGIONS

187

APPENDIX 2

Northern

Far Northern

Central

South Western

North Coast

Greater Brisbane

South Eastern

Maryborough

ToowoombaBeenleigh

Rockhampton

Townsville

Cairns


GLOSSARY

AFA automatic fire alarm (call)ambo colloquial term for an ambulance officerappliance fire truck, fire enginearea director senior officer responsible for an area within a regionauxiliaries part-time firefighters who are paid on turnout training

and to fight fires, conduct Fire Education programs etc.BA compressed-air breathing apparatus: a backpack con-

taining 1800 litres of pressurised air and a mask (the‘Sabre’ is the set used by the QFRS; it has a 45-minuteduration)

backdraught explosion resulting from an oxygen-starved fire beinginadvertently fed air

BCF bromochlorodifluro methane: the substance used inextinguishers to put out oil-based fires

BLEVE acronym for Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion:the result of flammable gases escaping from a containerand prone to ignite; a highly dangerous situation

branch nozzle on the end of a fire-fighting hose that can varythe water spray

branchmen the team (number one and number three) who worktogether on a hose or line

bund an earthworks or other structure around a tank,designed to contain spills

bushfire sometimes called wildfire: a fire in open bush orgrassland

188


CABA see BAcallback process of telephoning firefighters to make up a short-

fall in a shiftcallout see turnoutcase feed filling through the pump or the truckCase 1 25-mm hose attached to a reel on the fire truck and

used for smaller fires Case 2 type of hose drill off a hydrant and not energised by the

pump Case 3 type of drill where a 64-mm hose will be charged

through the pumper from a hydrantCase 4 large 100–150-mm hose used for drawing or inducing

water through a filter attached to the end of the hose;used to supplement a water supply from a dam or river,in the case of larger fires, or where the water mainssupply might be threatened or where reticulated wateris not available

CBD central business districtcharged line a hose that is full of water, with the branch nozzle in the

‘off ’ positionCode Two fire or smoke visiblecomposite fire truck carrying water, with high-pressure hosepumper lines, a pump for inlet and delivery, foam capability, BA

sets and RAR kitCPR closed pulmonary resuscitationDUCOT acronym for Description, Use, Construction, Oper-

ation, Testing and safety overall: a testing procedure toensure that firefighters fully understand and are fam-iliar with their equipment

ET emergency tender: a truck equipped with devices forthe extraction of people from vehicular accidents, andwith other rescue equipment and breathing apparatus;also a control HQ for larger incidents

Firecom fire communication centreFire Ed Fire Education programs, usually for Grade 1 children

at primary schoolfire ground area of a fire incident, where firefighters will battle the fire

GLOSSARY 189


flashover ignition of hot gases within a smoke-filled room, cre-ating an instantaneous and sometimes lethal situation

foot 30 centimetres (approx.)4WD four-wheel-drive vehiclefully involved structural fire where the fire is well under way and has

consumed the greater part of the buildinggallon 4.5 litresgas pad training facility for practising firefighting techniques

against LPG and other flammable fuel situationsgrass fire uncontrolled fire in heath or grasslandHazmat hazardous materialhectare 2.5 acreshigh angle see vertical rescuerescue

hot fire training with live fire situationstraining

hydrant water mains outlet point on either a footpath (HP) or aroadway (HR) for QFRS use

HP hydrant, pathHR hydrant, roadwayinch 25 millimetresline a hose; a charged line is a hose full of waterLPG liquefied petroleum gasmile 1.6 kilometresmonitor fixed hose positionMVA motor vehicle accidentnozzle the fitting on the end of a 25-mm hoseovertrousers yellow, fireproof pants held up by braces and capable of

taking a protective inner liningpay points levels within fire officer grades indicating the degree of

training plug ground hydrantplugging bar device used to open a ground hydrant lidpump/pumper vehicle with pumping or energising capabilityQAS Queensland Ambulance ServiceQFRA Queensland Fire and Rescue AuthorityQFRS Queensland Fire and Rescue Service

190 GLOSSARY


Q-Step a graduated learning program for firefightersRAAP Road Awareness and Accident Prevention program,

designed for Year 12 students on road hazards, accidentsetc.

RAR road accident rescuerecce reconnaissanceregion Queensland is broken up into eight QFRS regionsRFS Rural Fire Service; volunteer firefighters in rural

areassenior rank of a firefighter immediately below station officer firefighter

SES State Emergency Service, a volunteer, Statewide searchand rescue organisation

shift period of either a 10-hour day or 14-hour evening/morning duty

standpipe device used to connect a hose to the ground hydrant ofa water mains supply

station building housing the firefighting equipmentstation officer officer responsible for the crew of a pump or tender or,

in small stations, the shift on dutystructural fire any fire involving a building or similar structureTAP telescopic aerial pump truck tender fire vehicle, usually a pump trucktop boots protective, shin-high, rugged footwear designed to give

added protection and to allow quick dressing of indi-viduals on turning out to a fire

TTL turntable ladder (vehicle)tour four shifts, most commonly of two 10-hour days and

two 14-hour nightsturnout dispatch of a pump or other appliance in response to a

000 call or an automatic alarmturnout coat fireproof jacket worn over the overtrousers and shirtUFU United Firefighters UnionUSAR urban search and rescueute light utility vehicle, pickup truckvariable nozzle on the end of the hose that can be altered from abranch jet (stream) to a wide fan of spray

GLOSSARY 191


vertical rescue recovery of persons trapped on an incline or a cliff,down a drain etc.

working fire a fire in which flames and smoke are visibleyard 90 centimetres (approx.)

192 GLOSSARY


NOTES AND SOURCES

Notes

Chapter 1

1 Interview, Jack Wensley, Station Officer, Toowoomba, 7 December2000

2 QFRA Annual Report 1999/2000

Chapter 3

1 Interview, Neil Smith, Station Officer, Caloundra, 15 June 2000

Chapter 4

1 Interview, John Watson, Area Director, Bundaberg, 31 July 20002 Interview, Mark Clyne, Captain, Coolum Brigade, Yaroomba,

2 December 20003 Interview, Jodie Burnett, Firefighter, Sarina Brigade, Sarina,

2 August 2000

Chapter 6

1 Interview, Russell Mayne, Senior Firefighter, Noosa, 14 June 20002 Ibid.

193


Chapter 7

1 Interview, Ian Ames, Station Officer, Kemp Place, Brisbane,1 December 2000

2 Interview, Neil Lesmond, Station Officer, South Townsville,7 August 2000

3 Interview, Kevin Anderson, Station Officer, South Townsville,6 August 2000

Chapter 8

1 Interview, Tim Watkins and Rob Brady. Regrettably Brady andLisette are no longer married, having separated in 2001 owing to‘pressures of the job’.

Chapter 9

1 Interview, Kevin Byrne, Mayor of Cairns, 10 August 20002 Interview, Brenton Walton, Area Director, Ayr, 3 August 20003 Interview, Fred Heiniger, Station Officer, Nambour, 20 September

20004 Ibid.5 Interview, Vince Hinder, Senior Firefighter, Toowoomba,

7 December 20006 Interview, Graham Cooke, Area Director, Dalby, Toowoomba,

7 December 2000

Chapter 10

1 Interview, Curl Santacaterina and Richard Randell, Childers FireStation, 30 July 2000

2 Interview and debrief, C Shift (McCracken, Black, Gatley andShailer), Bundaberg, 31 July 2000

3 Ibid.4 Interview, John Watson, Area Director, Bundaberg, 31 July 20005 Ibid.

194 NOTES AND SOURCES


Chapter 11

1 Interview, C Shift (McCracken, Black, Gatley and Shailer),Bundaberg, 31 July 2000

2 Interview, Neil Lesmond, Station Officer, South Townsville,7 August 2000

3 Interview, Graham Cooke, Area Director, Dalby, Toowoomba,7 December 2000

4 Interview, Trevor Kidd, Station Officer, Rockhampton, 1 August2000

5 Interview, Russell Mayne, Senior Firefighter, Noosa, 14 June 20006 Interview, Neil Smith, Station Officer, Caloundra, 15 June 20007 Ibid.

Chapter 12

1 QFS Report on the Cairns BLEVE, September 19872 Interview, Russell Matthews, Area Support Officer, Cairns,

9 August 20003 Extract from the Cairns Post, 1 September 19874 Extract from the Cairns Post, 18 August 19875 Op cit., QFS Report6 Op cit., Cairns Post, 1 September 19877 Interview, David Semple, Senior Firefighter, North Rockhampton,

31 July 20008 Uniquest report dated 2 December 1996

Appendix 1

1 The technical information supplied by QFRA Fire Science booklet,Q Step 103

2 Ibid.3 Ibid.4 Ibid.5 Ibid.6 Ibid.

NOTES AND SOURCES 195


Interviews

Ian Ames, Station Officer, Kemp Place, Brisbane, 1 December 2000Kevin Anderson, Station Officer, South Townsville, 6 August 2000Dean Baird, Communications Officer, Firecom, Spring Hill, 5 June

2000Lauren Baxter, Grade 1 student at Fire Ed, Goondi State School,

Innisfail, 8 August 2000Peter Beauchamp, Manager, Strategic Development, Far Northern

Region, Cairns, 10 August 2000 Julie Bennett, Firecom Supervisor, Southeastern Region, Southport,

8 November 2000Ken Besgrove, Firefighter, South Townsville, 7 August 2000Rob Brady, Senior Firefighter, Roma Street Fire Station, Brisbane,

22 July 2000Bob Buckley, Station Officer, Toowoomba, 7 December 2000Jodie Burnett, Firefighter, Sarina Brigade, 2 August 2000Kevin Byrne, Mayor of Cairns, 10 August 2000Mark Clyne, Captain, Coolum Brigade, Yaroomba, 2 December 2000Graham Cooke, Area Director, Dalby, Toowoomba, 7 December 2000Scott Dewar, Probationary Firefighter, Charters Towers, 4 August 2000Sven Diga, Probationary Firefighter, Ayr, 3 August 2000Brendan Doyle, Regional Commissioner, Far Northern Region,

Cairns, 9 August 2000Brian Edmonds, North Rockhampton, 31 July 2000Ray Eustace, Area Director, Maryborough, 30 July 2000Tom Franks, Station Officer, Lytton, 20 March 2000Dick Gledhill, Senior Firefighter, South Townsville, 7 August 2000Richard Gorey, Station Officer, Lytton, 20 March 2000Fred Heiniger, Station Officer, Nambour, 20 September 2000Vince Hinder, Senior Firefighter, Toowoomba, 7 December 2000Pat Hopper, Station Officer, Cairns, 9 August 2000 Warren Hosking, Probationary Firefighter, Charters Towers, 4 August

2000Trevor Kidd, Station Officer, Rockhampton, 1 August 2000Peter Lalor, Station Officer, Roma Street Station, Brisbane, 20–22 July

2001



Jim Legge, Communications Supervisor, Kawana Firecom,30 November 2000

Neil Lesmond, Station Officer, South Townsville, 7 August 2000Marcus Maffey, Probationary Firefighter, Ingham, 8 August 2000Russell Matthews, Area Support Officer, Cairns, 9 August 2000 Russell Mayne, Senior Firefighter, Noosa, 14 June 2000Andrew McCracken, Acting Station Officer, Bundaberg, 1 August

2000Wayne McLennan, Senior Firefighter, South Townsville, 7 August

2000Barry Mooney, Captain, Sarina Brigade, 2 August 2000Ray Moore, Station Officer, South Townsville, 7 August 2000Roy Moss, Second Officer, Yuleba RFS Brigade, Toowoomba,

7 December 2000Kevin Neilsen, Area Support Officer, Southport, 8 November 2000Michael Quinn, Station Officer, South Townsville, 5 August 2000Richard Randell, Lieutenant, Childers Brigade, 30 July 2000Arthur Read, Captain, Mt Morgan Brigade, Mt Morgan, 2 August

2000Paul Royal, Lieutenant, Coolum Brigade, 4 November 2000John Ryan, Probationary Firefighter, Innisfail, 8 August 2000Barry Salway, Senior Firefighter, Nambour, 20 September 2000Curl Santacaterina, Captain, Childers Brigade, 30 July 2000Pat Scanlan, Station Officer, Cairns, 9 August 2000Greg Scarlett, Senior Firefighter, Caloundra, 15 June 2000Robert Schulze, Captain, Killarney Brigade, 8 December 2000David Semple, Senior Firefighter, North Rockhampton, 31 July 2000Roy Simpson, Area Director, Northern Region, Ingham, 8 August

2000Luke Smith, Probationary Firefighter, Innisfail, 8 August 2000Neil Smith, Station Officer, Caloundra, 15 June 2000Brenton Walton, Area Director, Ayr, 3 August 2000Tim Watkins, Senior Firefighter, Roma Street Station, Brisbane,

22 July 2000John Watson, Area Director, Bundaberg, 31 July 2000Jack Wensley, Station Officer, Toowoomba, 7 December 2000

NOTES AND SOURCES 197


Pamphlets, documents and reports

AFCA Conference, speech notes by John Watson, Adelaide,September 2000

Cairns Post, 18 August, 1 September 1987QFRA Annual Report, 1999/2000QFRA Fire Science training booklet, Q-Step 103QFS Report, September 1987Uniquest Report, 2 December 1996

Acknowledgements

Peter J McNamee, Karen S McNamee, James E Kemp, JulianneStewart and USQ Distance Education Centre



Acacia Ridge, 86Allen, Graham, 167Ames, Ian, 31, 99–106 Anderson, Alec, 83, 105Anderson, Kevin, 88–90, 97, 113, 115animal rescue, 115–16, 143Annerley fire station, 14, 162Armstrong, Mal, 167, 169Aroona, 113Australian Army, 49, 141

Reserve, 58–9Australian Fire Service Medal, 72Australian Incident Reporting System

(AIRS), 126automatic fire alarms, 6, 49, 60–1, 63,

118–27 passim, 135, 142–3annual calls, 6, 127annual cost, 127

auxiliary firefighters, 57–70 passimbrigades, 14, 58–80 passimchampionships, 63, 65equipment, 59, 64–5, 69pay, 58–9, 69

Auxiliary Firefighters Association, 68Ayling, Jack, 168Ayr fire station, 132

backdraught, 27–30, 81, 179–81Baird, Dean, 49–50, 125Bargara, 47Barnes, John, 40Barter, Wayne, 89

Baxter, Lauren, 53–4Beasy, Neil, 49Beauchamp, Alan, 8, 122–3

Peter, 9–10, 48, 82–3, 131, 162, 164–5,174, 185–6

Beenleigh, 7, 51Bell, Alan, 89Bennett, Julie, 51, 143–4Besgrove, Kevin, 34, 36, 115Bettridge, Martin, 146Birdsville, 132Black, Gary, 147, 150Blackall Ranges, 139BLEVE, 28–9, 165–70 passimboom box, 27Boondall, 119, 106Boral, Gas Corporation, 165, 168Bousett, Greg, 133Brady, Rob, 123breathing apparatus (BA), 2, 16, 18–19,

30, 44, 60, 82–5, 92–3, 110, 114–5,120, 128, 135–6, 147, 150, 159, 161,163, 167, 170, 173–4Sabre sets, 22–4training, 22–26, 61, 141

Brisbane, viii, ix, 6, 18–19, 29, 43, 59, 63,82, 86, 118, 122, 133, 154, 159, 162–3,174, 180CBD, 6, 18, 23, 29, 118, 124City Council, 32Metropolitan Fire Brigade, 15Port, 15, 24River, 7, 15, 165

199

INDEX


Broadbeach, 14, 92Brophy, Sean, 49Browns Plains, 88Bruce Highway, 146–7Buckley, Bob, 7, 12–13, 51, 55, 63, 85,

109, 115, 142Bunda Street, Cairns, 165, 167, 169Bundaberg, 6, 12, 38, 55, 108, 145,

147–50city, 47, 156fire station, 147, 150, 153

C Shift, 147, 149, 151–2, 153, 155Bunn, Tim, 146Burdekin Fire Brigade, 132Bureau of Emergency Services Road

Accident Rescue Course, 100Burleigh Heads, 86Burnett, Gary, 43bushfires, 19, 71–9 passim, 142–3, 184–5Byrne, Kevin, 131, 168

Caboolture, 6fire station, 123

Cairns, ix, 2, 4, 6, 9, 14, 48, 84–5, 130–1,165, 167, 185city, 95–6, 131, 165Fire Brigade, 165–6Gatton Street fire station, 131, 166

B Shift, 166mayor, 131, 168

Cairns Post newspaper, 167–8Cairns Regional Development Board,

168callouts, see turnout Caloundra, 6, 9

fire station, 42, 46, 55, 57, 59, 95, 106,110, 140, 159

Captain Cook Bridge MVA, 121Castilano, Mark, 95Castle Hill, 112Cawco, John, 90–1Cecil Plains, 47Central Region, see regionsCessnock, NSW, 184chain carriers, 178Charleville, 6, 45, 48Charters Towers, ix, 36, 134–5

fire station, 134–5

chemical spills, see Hazmat, incidentsChief Commissioner’s Commendation,

112Childers, 47, 131, 145–54 passim

Auxiliary Brigade, 47, 145–54 passimdebriefing, 152–3fire, 131, 145–54 passimFire Brigade, 145–54 passim,

Board, 145station, 145–6

mayor, 153Multicultural Festival, 153Palace Backpackers Hostel, 131, 146,

149police, 151–2Rural Fire Brigade, 146–7, 150, 152SES, 151

Chinchilla, 47Christiansen, Reg, 47City Heart Backpackers Hostel fire,

Rockhampton, 170Clifton fire station, 63Clyne, Mark, 59–61Cobban, Ian, 156Commendation for Brave Conduct, 174Community Safety, 46Cook, Peter, 162Cooke, Graham, 3, 13, 40, 47–8, 62, 75,

96, 142–3, 158, 186Coolangatta, ixCoolum Beach, 59–60

fire station, 59–62 Country Fire Authority, VIC, 13Courier Mail newspaper, ixCoventry Climax, 2Cromwell, helmet, 137crown fires, 19, 71–9 passim, 142–3Cunnamulla, 141Curtis, Lyle, 68

Dalby, 3, 6, 13, 47–8, 62, 75, 142–3, 186Dalton, Matthew, 146Darling Downs, 45Dawson, Tom, 128de Landelles, Kellie, 68Deaf Foundation, 85debriefing, 77, 96–7, 107, 152–3

200 INDEX


defensive driving training, 19DeGray, Lisette, 123Department of Emergency Services, 6

see also Queensland EmergencyServices

Devine, Roy, 169Dewar, Scott, 33, 36, 134Diga, Sven, 15–17, 34, 132DUCOT, 115Dutton Street, Cairns, 169

Edmonds, Brian, 84, 125, 136–8, 170–4Elliott, Lindsay, 55Ellis, Henry, 40Emergency Services, 50

Director General, 153Emu Vale hotel, 64Energex, 103

helicopter, 62EPA, 8, 43Ergon Electricity, 148, 151–2

cherry picker, 150Ettamogah Pub, 94Eumundi, 139Eustace, Ray, 3, 14, 39–40, 48, 90,

109–10, 115–6, 161Kathy, 39

Evans, Warren, 113

Far Northern Region, see regionsFight Fire Fascination program, 55fire

properties of, 175–7extinguishment of, 178–9

Fire Brigade Boards, 7, 9, 110, 131Fire Education program, aka Fire Ed, 52,

64, 66, 142Fire Life magazine, 109Fire Officer’s Association, 8Firecom, 18, 40–1, 48–52, 58, 76, 80,

88–9, 104, 115, 170Brisbane (Spring Hill), 88–9, 121–2,

124–6Kawana, 146–7, 152Southport, 51, 143Toowoomba, 143Townsville, 133

firefighters, attributes of, 3–5, 17, 32, 40

firefighting techniques, 80–97 passimFirst Aid Certificate, 15, 60flashover, 27–9, 30, 81, 148, 151–2, 162,

171–2, 179–81Forestall, Greg, 33Forrest Beach, 135Fortitude Valley, 83Franks, Tom, 2, 80–1

Garbutt fire station, 88, 105Gateway, Arterial Motorway, 99, 103

Bridge, 164Gatley, Ross, 147, 150Gatton Street fire station, Cairns, 131,

166Gaven Way, 93 Gazebo Ramada Hotel, 121Gestetner, 13Giddy Goanna program, 66, 133Gin Gin, 47, 68

Ginns, Ross, 27Gledhill, Dick, 3, 41, 51, 54, 82, 134Gold Coast, 7, 14, 80, 144

Hinterland, 75Goondi, 52Goondiwindi, 45, 48Goopy, Paul, 123–6Gordon and Gotch, building fire, 83Gorey, Richard, 12, 14, 20, 32, 34, 45Gosschalk, Kevin, 141grass fires, 71–9 passim, 131, 134–5,

142–3, 157–8, 167, 185Grey Street Bridge, 126

Halifax, 135Hall, Mike, 33Halvorsen, Wayne, 119–20Hannon’s Hotel, fire, 85–6Hanrahan, Jason, 60Harbourne, Wayne, 145Hartley, Wayne, 11, 68, 153 Hastie, Geoff, 17, 27, 29Hayes, Brian, 120Hazmat, 19, 60

equipment, 118incidents, 114–5, 124, 143, 164–5

INDEX 201


Headland golf course, 60Heineger, Fred, 3, 58, 78, 115, 139–41Hermit Park, 89–90high angle rescue, see vertical rescuehigh rise buildings, 143

fires, 91–2, 118, 128Highgate Hill, 162Hill, Jane, 133Hinder, Vince, 1–3, 13, 41, 73, 93, 107,

142, 185Hollis, Bob, 157Holmatro, hydraulic equipment, 101Homestead Hotel, Boondall, 119Hopper, Pat, 2, 4, 14, 39, 44, 84–5, 96,

105, 168Hosking, Warren, 33, 36, 134–5hot fire training, 19–20, 26–30Housing Commission, 86Hunter Valley, NSW, viii, 184Hyatt Regency, Coolum, 62

Indy Grand Prix, 51, 144Ingham, ix, 35, 94, 109

fire station, 35, 135Innisfail, 34, 52, 168Ipswich, 7, 14, 116, 161

fire station, 110Woollen Company, fire, 15, 90

Isis Shire, 145

James Street fire, Mt Morgan, 67–8Jandowae, 47Julong, 139Juvenile Arson Offenders program, 56

Karana Downs, 110Kawana, Firecom, 146–7, 152Kelvin Grove Teachers College, 124Kemp Place, 29–30, 128, 163Kennedy, Colin, 146Kent Street, Rockhampton, 135Ketchion, Malcolm, 33Kettle, Bob, 9Kidd, Trevor, 4, 44, 51, 136–8, 158, 162Killarney, 63–5

Auxiliary Brigade, 63–6, 70Kings Beach, 160

Kingsford Smith Drive, Mt Gravatt, 99Kirra Surf Life Saving Club, 14Kirwan fire station, 133Kitchener Street fire station,

Toowoomba, 13, 158Knight, Graham, 161Koala Inn, Lytton (aka Kamp Krusty), 18,

34Kuwait, burning oil wells, 179

Lalor, Peter, 118, 120–6Legge, Jim, 152Lesmond, Neil, 83, 85, 110–11, 156–7live fire training, see also hot fire training,

19–20, 26–30Live Fire Training Unit, Lytton (now

Whyte Island), 26, 29Logan River, 7Loggener, Greg, 114Long, Robert, 154LPG, 27, 29, 170

explosions, 28–9, 165–70 gas, 28, 165–6

Lytton, viii, 15, 17–19, 27gas pad, 30Training Academy, 17–19, 27, 30, 33,

100, 180

McAllister, Chad, 60McCloskey, Mick, 89McCracken, Andrew, 147, 149–50McDermott, Tim, 60McGuiness, Frank, 111–12McKay, Don, 24–6McKey, Nigel, 146McKissack, Glen, 26, 33McLennan, Wayne, 5, 13, 94, 103, 105–6,

116, 134, 164McLeod, Tina, 134McTaggart’s Woolstore fire, 128–9Mac’s Brewery fire, Rockhampton, 84Mackay, 68Madison Apartments fire, Broadbeach,

92Maffey, Marcus, 33, 34, 94, 109Magnetic Island, 135

202 INDEX


Male, Darren, 132Mapleton, 139Mareeba, 101, 130

auxiliary station, 131Maroochydore, fire station, 43, 139–40Maryborough, 3, 6, 48, 108, 145, 161

Fire Brigade Board, 12Matthews, Russell, 131, 166–7, 169Mayfair Crest Hotel fire, Brisbane, 92Mayne, Russell, 1, 4–5, 7, 15, 38, 40–1,

54, 82, 86–7, 91–2, 94–5, 115, 159,163–4

Meendarra, 47Metropolitan Fire Officer’s Association, 8Mexico City, LPG explosion, 29, 165Miles, 47Mitchell Street, 134Montville, 139Mooloolaba, 60Mooney, Barry, 68–70Moonie Highway, 143Moore, Ray, 15, 39, 94, 103–4Moss, Roy, 71–7motor vehicle accidents, see MVAMountains, Peter, 27Mt Cotton driver training facility, 18Mt Fox, 109Mt Gravatt fire station, 31, 99–100Mt Isa, 51Mt Morgan, 66–8

Auxiliary Brigade, 66–8, 70Fire Brigade Board, 67fire station, 67

Murphy, Tom, 83MVA, 35, 42, 51–2, 62–3, 65–6, 69,

98–109 passim, 110, 121, 127, 131–3,135, 142–3, 148

Nambour, 4, 94, 104, 139–41 churches,

Catholic, 139–40Church of England, 139–40Lutheran, 139Methodist, 140Presbyterian, 141

Christian bookstore, 140fire station, 43, 58–9, 78, 115, 139

Firecom, 104, 139–40hospital, 94telephone exchange, 140

National Hotel, Cairns, 170National Parks and Wildlife, 135Neilsen, Kevin, 5, 14, 45–6, 75, 80, 83,

86, 92–3, 97New Farm, 165New South Wales, viii, 6–7, 63

Fire Brigade, 51New York City, viii, 98New Zealand Fire Service, 9Noosa, 60–1, 91

District High School, 54fire station, 7, 38, 139–40

North Ipswich, 90North Ward, 94, 134Northbridge Apartments, North

Brisbane, 125Northern Region, see regionsNorthern Territory, 6, 132, 135Nugent, Dave, 156

O’Neill, Mick, 113Oxley, 60

Paddington, 82Palmwoods, 139Parker, Blair, 33–4Pepper, Daryl, 48Petrie fire station, 123Petrie Terrace, 121Pico pager system, 58, 69, 185propane gas, 27Proserpine, 13protective clothing, 2, 84, 169Pugh, Juanita, 134

Q-Step, 10, 35, 46Queensland, throughoutQueensland Ambulance Service (QAS),

49, 136, 151–2, 166Queensland Emergency Services

comms centre, 49director general, 153

Queensland Fire and Rescue Authority(QFRA), 11

INDEX 203


Queensland Fire and Rescue Service(QFRS), throughoutCommissioner, 11, 68, 153Fire Investigation squad, 151garage, 120HQ, Kedron Park, ix, 4, 17, 51Pipes and Drums band, 33regions, 6–7, 187 restructuring, 9–10state championships, 65Stores Section, 8

Queensland Fire Service, 7, 9–10, 77, 155

Queensland Police Service, 151–2Disaster Victim Investigation Unit,

151Queensland Public Services Union, 8Queensland Rail, 68Quine, Tom, 185Quinn, Michael, 88–9, 113, 127–8, 134

RAAF, 14, 46RAAP program, see Road Awareness and

Accident Prevention programRandell, Richard, 145–50RAR (road accident), 18, 30, 44, 64, 68,

98–109 passim, 143Championships

nationals, 131state, 31, 100–1, 130world, 131

incidents, 64, 68, 99–109 passimprocedures, 101–2, 121rapid intervention, 101, 103, 105training, 18, 30–32, 44, 60, 62

Ratcliffe, John, 146, 150Linda, 146

Ray, Graeme, 29–30Read, Arthur, 67Recruit Course 45/00, 15–36 passim,

132recruit training, 12–36 passim

examinations, 119–20physical testing, 16–17syllabus, 18–19

Red Hill, 127

Redbank, 14regions, 46, 187

Brisbane North Region, 6, 118–27passim

Brisbane South Region, 6–7, 29, 31Central Region, 6, 135Far Northern Region, 6, 48, 130–2North Coast Region, 6, 46, 55, 78,

139–141, 145Northern Region, 6, 132–5 Southeastern Region, 7, 51, 143–4Southwestern Region, 6, 62, 141–3

rescue, 99–116 passimReynolds, Steve, 167, 169–70Road Awareness and Accident Prevention

program (RAAP), 54–5Roberts fire, Toowoomba, 85Rockhampton, 4, 6, 44, 66–9, 84, 104,

135, 162, 170fire station, 135Firecom Central, 67, 69hospital, 173museum, 136–7Rural Fire Service headquarters, 136

Rockhampton North, fire station, 136Rolleston, 75Roma, 6, 45, 48Roma Street, fire station, ix, 8, 18, 23, 99,

118–27 passim, 128–9, 164A Shift, 122B Shift, ix, 118, 120–27 passimBA training facility, 18–19, 23–4, 120,

164D Shift, 127Hazmat unit, 118, 164

training facility, 18Ross River, 133Royal Brisbane Hospital, burns unit, 169,

174RSPCA, ambulance, 50Rural Fire Service (RFS), 6, 50, 64, 71–9

passim, 146, 150, 152Ryan, Joe, 128Ryan, John, 34–5Rydges Hotel, Southbank, 118–19

204 INDEX


Safehome program, 55Salway, Barry, 4–5, 27, 39, 43, 51, 54, 78,

104, 107, 180–1Berys, 39

Sandford, Tamara, 60Santacaterina, Curl, 145–8, 152Sarina, 68–9

Auxiliary Brigade, 69–70Scanlan, Pat, 14, 39, 44, 85, 95, 107, 168Scarlett, Greg, 39, 42, 55, 90–1, 95, 107,

110, 113–14, 128Schulze, Robert, 63–6Scullen, Alan, 168Sealy, David, 68Semple David, 104, 136–7, 170–4Senior Officers Association, 8–10Sexton, Lloyd, 85–6Shailer, Vicki, 147, 150Shark Club, The, 136–7,

bombing, 174Shaw, Stephen, 136, 138shift work, 37–8, 117–29 passim

call back, 118, 126impact, 38–40times, 38–9

Simpson, Roy, 135Smith, Luke, 34–5Smith, Neil, 8–9, 15, 42–3, 46–7, 55, 57,

81, 83–5, 91, 93, 96, 106–7, 117,159–60

South Australia, 132, 135, 141South Brisbane, 125Southbank, 118Southeast Freeway, 31, 99, 121Southport, 31, 86, 143

fire station, 75, 92–3Firecom, 51, 143–4

South Townsville, see Townsville St Lucia, 121Stanthorpe, 60State Emergency Service (SES), 6, 30, 60,

78, 100, 104, 149, 151State Governor, 174structural fires, 22, 63, 84–91 passim,

128–9, 131, 136–42, 146–53 passim,166

Sugar Bush Café, Childers, 151

Sunshine Coast, 6, 38, 59, 84, 113Surfers Paradise, 80, 86Sutherland, Alex, 157Swedish Fire Service, 30swift water rescue, 98

incidents, 110–11

Tara, 47Tarda, Damien, 146Telstra, 50, 109Tewantin, 54Thornton, Laurie, 67Tinker, Darren, 60Titman, Alan, 136–7Toowoomba, 1, 3, 6–7, 12–13, 48, 51,

63–4, 66, 72–3, 85, 141–2, 158, 185Fire Brigade Board, 7, 13fire station, 41–2, 45, 141–2 Firecom, 76, 143ranges, 73, 141–2

Toowong, 122Townsville, 3, 5–6, 13, 34–5, 51, 54, 68,

88–9, 103, 105, 111, 112, 115, 133,157city, 85, 94, 97, 110, 113Fire Brigade, 15, 132–4

Board, 133Firecom, 133–4General Hospital, 128Operational Support Unit, 133Shire, 132South Townsville, 127South Townsville fire station, 34, 89,

105, 127, 133–4, 156, 164A Shift, 133C Shift, 156

trauma, 106–8, 153turnout, 6, 20–1, 40, 51, 58, 64, 67, 78,

86, 118–29 passim, 143, 170Tweed River, 7, 51Twomey, Dan, 167

unions, 7–8United Nations, 115United Firefighters’ Union, 8University of Queensland, 121, 173

Uniquest Report, 173

INDEX 205


United States, exchange program, 92United States Navy, 99urban search and rescue, see USARUrquhart, Glen, 34USAR (urban search and rescue), 18,

44, 98incidents, 112–14, 151

vehicle fires, 93–4, 104, 142, 165vertical rescue, 98, 109Viet Nam, viii, 14, 46, 141Von Deest, Les, 156

Wallaville, 47Walmsley, Robert, 100Walton, Brenton, 132Warburton, Chris, 174Warwick, 48, 66

Fire Brigade Board, 63Watkins, Tim, 118, 122–3, 125–6

Watson, John, 12, 38, 47, 108, 149–53Watson, Len, 100Wensley, Jack, 3, 13, 39, 42, 45, 141West End, 126Whisky Au Go Go fire, 154Whitaker, Hayden, 146Whyte Island (QFRA Academy), 15, 26wild fires, see bushfiresWinkelmann, Bob, 146–8Woodlands fire station, 133Woodridge, 51, 86, 88, 97, 159Woombye, 139World Firefighter Games, 59World Trade Center, viii, 98Wulga, 75Wulguru fire station, 105, 133

Yuleba, 72–3Rural Fire Brigade, 72–3, 76–7

206 INDEX


firefighters: the men and women who risk their lives to save ours

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