A firefighter broke his chain of command and pleaded with a superior for more rescuers on the day flash floods killed at least 19 people in southeast Queensland, the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry has heard.
The inquiry on Tuesday began looking into the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service, in particular its swift-water rescue operations.
Ipswich station officer Mark Stephenson said that on January 10, there was only one fully-trained swift-water rescue person rostered on.
Firefighters must have two people trained to level-two standard at rescues.
A level-two rescuer can enter fast-flowing water to rescue a person, while a level-one rescuer plays a supporting role, for instance holding a line that supports their colleague.
Mr Stephenson said there had been rescues on every shift in the preceding weeks, but his request for six additional staff was met with delay.
"In my view, I was compromising the safety of my crew by not bringing them in," he said.
He broke the chain of command and pleaded with the acting assistant commissioner, who approved an additional level-two rescuer.
His crew worked in Murphy's Creek, where two of the Lockyer Valley's 17 victims died. Two people were killed at Toowoomba and three are still missing, presumed dead.
Mr Stephenson's crew got to Murphy's Creek before the deadly wall of water arrived there, but his order to close the Warrego Highway, which runs through the region, was overruled.
He was later sent to work in the incident control centre overseeing the operation, where he found a swift-water rescuer doing paperwork and another answering phones.
With 22 people reported missing he deemed it "not helpful" and got them to form a team.
The centre was in a state of confusion with firefighters standing around waiting to be tasked. And, in his statement to the inquiry, Mr Stephenson described his difficulty working out where crews and trucks were.
"I am surprised ... due to this lack of awareness that no fire service personnel were lost," he said.
Toowoomba station officer William Dundas told the inquiry it was "very, very rare" that his station had two level-two rescuers rostered on at once.
"It does occur, but that's all to do with our rostering," he said.
Auxiliary firefighters, commonly found in small towns where firefighters aren't required full time, were given only a "swift-water awareness package" and weren't trained for rescues, Mr Dundas said.
Gatton fire station captain Geoff Dixon, who worked at Murphy's Creek on that day, told the inquiry the fire service's vehicles were ill-equipped for flood work, as they couldn't drive on flooded roads.
He also called for "cross-pollination" with defence forces, saying firefighters would benefit from training in helicopter procedures in order to perform air rescues and dropping personnel and equipment into remote locations.
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