Freshwater Creek’s CFA Brigade Headquarters

Posted by Peter Kavenagh on May 31, 2016
 
The Staff of the CFA Station were introduced by Chairman Les Grossman;
Captain-elect Matthew Gargett,
First Lieutenant-elect Matthew Trickey
Secretary and First Lieutenant Sheree Seiffert.
Lt. Gargett welcomed the RC Bayside visitors and spoke of the operations of the Freshwater Creek CFA.
He thanked RC Bayside Geelong for previous donations.
From our donations purchases of individual kit bags for PPE were made two years ago and last year our donation was used to purchase a new Quick-Fill pump.
  • Their primary area of operations is West of Ghazeepore Rd and South of Mt. Duneed Road
  • They attend fires in other areas to support nearby brigades.
  • The have two Tankers; one owned by CFA and one by the station. It is intended to replace the latter in 2020.
  • Each Tanker holds 3,000 litres of water — filled at all times ready to Turn Out.
  • The Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) is provided by CFA as is much of the equipment in the CFA-owned truck. Supplementary equipment is purchased by the Brigade.
  • They have at least three modes of communication: Pagers by Telstra, UHF radio channel for local communication and UHF radio to CFA headquarters or incident-control centre(s).
  • Sometimes they are joined by other brigades to form a five-unit Strike Team to attend to an incident.
  • The Tankers can be refilled in three to five minutes from a lake or dam using a Quick-Fill pump or from a hydrant — of which there are few in their primary area.
  • They are required to raise funds to pay for the brigade’s own resources including the second Tanker.
  • Currently they are raising $5,000 to $6,000 to erect a hose drying pole at the rear of the station. They are about half-way in this endeavour.
  • It will be a concrete ex-Powercor pole 16-17m high fitted with an electric pulley system. This will enable the brigade to dry and drain 30metre hoses quickly so they can repack them ready to Turn Out.
  • Membership has decreased recently to 12 operational members. It is their goal to attract more members next Financial Year.
  • A recent membership drive in the Grovedale area (albeit outside their primary area) did not yield any results.
  • However a Deakin University student has grasped the challenge and is now their Communications Officer. It his hopeful he will attend Officer Training and graduate successfully.
  • The brigade answers 30 to 40 call per year. They Turn Out for every local road accident, grass and scrub fires and some false alarms. Large fires like at Lorne last Christmas season consumed many resources over many days but counted only as one call.
  • When interstate Fire teams require support the CFA promises the requested number of Strike Teams from a determined number of Regions. Then the members volunteer to join the Strike Teams on the interstate trip either singly or as a brigade — at very short notice.
  • The staff then showed RC members over one of the Tankers (Freshwater Creek – 1) explaining the role of each equipment piece.