THE Swan Hill fire brigade has received a boost to its resources as the region heads into the height of the fire danger period, with a new light tanker added to the station.
Swan Hill CFA captain Dennis Turner told The Guardian the new addition was the result of community contribution, with the brigade putting up around $40,000 through fundraising efforts.
The funds joined with state government grants and money from the CFA which combined to allow for the purchase of the 1700 litre capacity truck.
Capt Turner said with the station well-equipped and 45 wildfire accredited members the brigade was now in the “best position it could be” .
“We’re really grateful to the community for supporting the brigade through our fundraising activities,” he told The Guardian.
“We do fire extinguisher maintenance as well, and we did raise a bit of money with the fruit fly trap roll out and the raffles that we do.”
Capt Turner said the new truck would provide a much-needed back-up for grass fires and when the large 4000 litre capacity tanker was attending an incident out of town.
“On total fire ban days our big tanker is on what we call a rapid response crew, so if we take that out to Sea Lake or Manangatang we still have a truck left in town we can do some grass firefighting with,” Capt Turner said.
While the new vehicle was ordered in mid-2018, capt Turner said it couldn’t have arrived at a better time.
“It’s an upgrade from the Land Rover, that has a 400 litre capacity and is really just a back-up truck, its done its day,” he said.
“It carries a crew of five and it’s just a good little handy backup tool for us.
“It means we still have some sort of firefighting capabilities if we send out other truck away somewhere.”
The smaller design also makes it perfect for the hard-to-reach jobs.
“If we can’t fit the big tanker into a scrubby area we’ll drive this little one and feed water into it,” capt Turner said.
The CFA captain said the new addition would “well and truly” make a difference to firefighting efforts this season.
“We’ll have a fairly serious firefighting force to hit the ground early this year, so it’ll be quite handy,” he said.
“I think this year is going to be one of those years unfortunately, we have wind coming tomorrow, we have wind coming again till the end of next week — I don’t ever remember seeing such a windy spring time.
“Some of the wind speeds have been in excess of 40 km/h per day and we’re still right smack bang in the middle of harvest and things like that, our busy time of the year is here.”
Capt Turner said the brigade was grateful the community had heeded recent warnings with the code red day, and a number of days already declared a total fire ban.
“I have spoken to a lot of farmers over the last couple of weeks and they have actually been stopping on these bad days so they’re not doing harvest activities while the wind speed is up,” capt Turner said.
“Our fire danger rating in the Mallee last Thursday was over what Black Saturday was, by a long way…it was a shocking day, and I can’t see that being the last of those days unfortunately.”
Capt Turner said with the region in for a long fire season, residents needed to continue to be aware of the rules.
“People need to know that this time of the year, burning off, you just cannot do it. We won’t be granting permits for burning off and you can’t burn off without a permit it is illegal,” capt Turner said.
“Police will take a zero tolerance and we will take a zero tolerance this year as well, so if you are doing something wrong, expect to be looked at by the police and by us.
“This summer is going to one of the ones out of the box and people need to heed warnings.”
But, in the case of a fire, capt Turner said the brigade was now “in the best place we have been in for a couple of years” to respond.
“We have 45 wildfire accredited members, so we have surge capacity out for our neighbouring brigades, without leaving the town short and we haven’t been in that position for a little while now, so it has been really really good,” he said.
“We have a strong brigade and we have brigade members that are committed to the community, it’s the best place we have been in for a while and it gives us capacity now to send crews away.
‘We had some crews go to NSW, we got a lot of fires over at the north east at the moment and a lot of fires down Gippsland way.
“It gives us capacility now if we need to send fresh crews away to give these other blokes a bit of a hand we won’t be leaving the town short, we have plenty of crew in reserve.”
Capt Turner said it was “a good position to be in”.
“We’re very happy to have this truck here, and to have it before our fire season well and truly kicks in,” he said.
“We haven’t used it yet, but I’m sure the day will come one day soon.”
“This tanker is a mix of funding from the state government, CFA and the community
“We now have multiple tankers, two nissan patrols and a salvage truck.
This new one is a back up tanker, it gives us surge capacity.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t buy the tanker locally, it has to come from the CFA, but we have purchased other equipment from local dealers, in tough times it is important to be putting back into the community where you can.
