Where to start?
Volunteering to become a firefighter with your local brigade is straight-forward according to 40-year veteran firefighter Superintendent Wayne Waltisbuhl of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, who manages the Brisbane regional Rural Fire Service. You can go to local fire brigades and tell them you want to be a firefighter volunteer. They will do a background check and see if your suitabilities. If approved you will attend all the necessary training.
“It’s an arduous task. It’s tough and fire can be quite devastating and you will see things that aren’t normal,” says Waltisbuhl. So you really need to think it through, because it is not one-off training and it is done and volunteer firefighters are ready to put out a fire, but it is a long process that needs proper training and requires commitments.
Rural firefighters are seen preparing to fight fires at Spicers Gap, south west of Brisbane, Wednesday, November 13, 2019. Source: AAP
Rural Fire Service Deputy Dave Ryan (second right) prepares firefighters to tackle a bushfire at Gospers Mountain near Putty, north-west of Sydney. Source: AAP
Different skills and diversity needed
Stuart Ellis is the chief executive of AFAC, the National Council for Fire and Emergency Service which represents 31 agencies says more people with different skill sets (Supporting and administration, radio operators and coordination) from Australian diverse background from Australian multicultural communities are needed.
The last Census shows that 49 percent of Australians were either born overseas or have at least one foreign-born parent. More than one-fifth of the population speaks a language other than English at home.
According to the Male Champions of Change 2018 Fire and Emergency group report, there is a need for more gender and cultural diversity in brigades to better reflect multicultural Australia.
Ellis says that many studies have highlighted that "we have a good cross-section of men and women, the volunteer brigade and the culture of the volunteer brigades are more healthy, decision-making is more balanced and appropriate, and so it really does aid the volunteer brigade where we get a good mixture of men, women and culturally-diverse people.”
Firefighters manage a controlled burn near Tomerong, Australia, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020, in an effort to contain a larger fire nearby. Source: AP
It is about helping your community
"I can help my community and be a part of it and meet some more people," says Virginia Eastwood, a French-born Australian who has lived in Australia for the last 11 years whose husband is also a volunteer firefighter.
Being a volunteer firefighter is rewarding
Virginia Eastwood says that after she moved from Brisbane to a rural town in Queensland with her husband, she decided to become a firefighter volunteer too.
She admits that it is not an easy task because she has to juggle between work, volunteer and minding her young kids. But because her family and her community are very supportive, she sometimes drops her kids off at her friend's place.
Eastwood says that ''though it is a very demanding job, working long hours and she is very happy knowing that she has done something rights and something good for Australia and its people.''
Stuart Ellis says that the bushfire season is not over yet as some of the Australian states and territories are still battling with ongoing bushfires.
Volunteer fireighters in the Australia Day parade, Melbourne 2020 Source: Aaron Wan/SBS
Though there are more people volunteer with the Fire and Emergency Services, not many do so with the urban fire brigades where they have less population. Therefore Ellis encourages people to express their interest with these brigades to see if they can accommodate due to they have limit resources.
