The Rural Fire Service is considering changing its membership rules to help recruit more ethnic volunteers.
Ahead of what could be a busy fire season, the organisation is looking at how it can be more representative of the community it serves.
Jacky Fok is a member of the largest volunteer fire-fighting service in the world.
He has been with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service for nearly a decade and says he is happy to do something useful in his spare time.
“It gives me the opportunity to achieve my personal goals and to play a part in protecting the community and the environment from many unexpected events,” he told SBS.
Jacky is one of more than 37,000 fire-fighters who help battle bush fires.
The RFS has taken him across borders, helping out with major crises like last year's devastating Victorian bushfires.
“The best thing is to be able to go outside and work in the bush and outdoor environment and of course operating bushfire tankers and all this fire-fighting equipment requires a bit of skills and experience which is actually what I enjoy doing," he said.
There are more than 70,000 Rural Fire Service members across the state.
Rural Fire Service Assistant Commissioner Dominic Lane says the RFS wants to increase that number hoping to change the organisation's image to better reflect the community.
“Most of the regional, rural New South Wales population as we knew it 20 or 30 years ago was mainly white, but we are seeing many regional centres now that have a much greater levels of diversity within their local communities and our local brigades are starting to reflect that,” he told SBS.
The flexibility plan hopes remove the usual stumbling blocks that stop people from signing up such as a lack of time, work, cultural or family commitments.
The Rural Fire Service is best known for fighting bushfires, but volunteers do a lot more than that.
They respond to all sorts of community disasters like the recent floods and car accidents.
For Jacky Fok and other volunteers the fire season has been quiet so far.
But a few weeks of dry weather is all it takes to see the conditions right for bush to burn.
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