Steve Field was doing repairs at a local slaughterhouse when his pager sounded, its urgent beeps interrupting the hisses and pops of his welder’s torch. Sparks from a heavy-duty mulcher had ignited a grassfire at a nearby farm, and the flames were spreading rapidly across the grazing land, threatening hundreds of sheep and dozens of towering wind turbines.
Here, about 90 per cent of firefighters are unpaid. It’s an arrangement that dates back to the mid-1800s, when farmers and those living in rural communities self-organized to create firefighting services where there were none. They’ll need to navigate thorny issues, including liability, insurance and training – challenges that Australia has grappled with over the last decade. But some say it’s still worth exploring.
Mr. Field is a second generation firie, his father having been a member of another CFA brigade for more than 50 years. In Victoria, the CFA requires that volunteer firefighters be 16 years or older, complete general training that can take up to six months and attend regular meetings and training sessions. They must also live or work close enough to their brigade to respond to incidents quickly. Paid staff operating out of district headquarters support and co-ordinate volunteers.
In the state of Queensland, about 50 kilometres south of Brisbane, members of the Woodhill Rural Fire Brigade convened at their fire station in late February after conducting a pile burn for a private landowner. First Officer Ben Heilbronn picked up coffee and buns for the crew, whose members range in age from 16 to 64, to consume as they debriefed and chatted about weekend plans. He described the brigade, of which he’s been a member for 18 years, as a second family.
For others, firefighting is a continuation of a tradition that existed long before the formalities of structured brigades and legislation.
Volunteers make up about 70 per cent of all Canadian firefighters, and nearly all outside of city centres. At wildland-urban interface fires – where forests and vegetation meet communities and other human-made structures – career municipal and volunteer firefighters are typically responsible for assessing which properties are defendable, installing sprinklers and doing structural firefighting.
In British Columbia, the BC Wildfire Service manages wildfires on both Crown and private lands, employing a network of seasonal firefighters, permanent staff and contractors. On wildland-urban interface fires, the provincial wildfire service might request assistance from a local fire department for structural protection.
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