The locals running into burning buildings
Stretched for volunteers, the firefighters at Horsley Park are readying for a fire season that’s starting a month earlier than usual for the city of Fairfield.
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Stretched for volunteers, the firefighters at Horsley Park are readying for a fire season that’s starting a month earlier for the city of Fairfield.
About fifteen firefighters regularly work the station at Horsley Park, but they make do by stretching shifts to 12 hours and leaning on other brigades when the fires they’re fighting are tough.
“We are stretched,” said Darren Nation, Captain of Horsley Park Brigade. “We do need members. We need people to join.”
Like the people who work alongside him, 42 year old Mr Nation is a volunteer firefighter. Has been for the last 25 years.
His day job involves working with gyprock as a cornersmith, but he still clears time to train a cohort for almost three hours on Wednesday evenings.
“They called for crews last week (to fight the fires in Clarence Valley), but we didn’t have anyone we could send from our station,” he said.
“We’d like to send a truck up, but we got no one to send it.”
Last year the regular crew – together with another 25 drop ins – helped put out an estimated 420 fires across Fairfield local area command.
They were there for the Black Christmas fires of 2001, which saw more than a hundred homes destroyed and 750,000 hectares go up in smoke. And they were among the first on site at the Winmalee fires in 2013, where flames fanned by 100km/h winds destroyed almost 200 homes.
These are the exceptions and not the norm, said Jonathan Gauci, a 35 year old who has volunteered for the last 18 years.
“No one’s been significantly hurt, but there’s been a lot of close calls. The worst injury has been a few broken bones stepping down in a wombat hole,” said Mr Gauci.
“It’s a very community based organisation. We have fun; it’s a hobby we enjoy.”
Most of the jobs the Horsley Park Brigade get called out to aren’t fires, but rather car accidents, Mr Gauci said.
He recalls a car accident last November, where a minibus carrying nine people collided with a van carrying another two in Kemps Creek.
“It was my first fatality,” said Ethan Makin, a 27 year old who has volunteered for almost three years. “There’s still a two-year-old girl screaming in the back of my head.
“But it’s like family around here. Everyone pulled me in and talked me through it.
“The adrenaline kicks in and you’re on autopilot (while you work), but it’s after that the noise you hear and see creeps in.”
The two large fire trucks – “heavies”, as the firefighters call them – need five or six crew to operate each. The crew works on 12-hour rotations during large fires, but it can only be sustained for 24 hours.
“You feel the stress. You’re calling on other brigades to assist,” said 35 year old Mr Gauci.
“The only reason why we get through is because of the good will of firefighters. They push harder than they really should.
“If we could get anyone, we’d take.”