Heart of the Nation: Hobart 7018

IMAGINE being dropped off by helicopter on an isolated hilltop next to a raging bushfire.

Heart of the Nation

IMAGINE being dropped off by helicopter on an isolated hilltop next to a raging bushfire.

It's hot as hell, you've got 20 kilos of equipment on your back, and you're expected to put that fire out. Sounds pretty daunting, doesn't it? But it's all in a day's work for the Remote Area Team firefighters of Tasmania.

When the RATs, as they're known, needed extra numbers to tackle a blaze in the hills east of Hobart recently, Alison Wigston (pictured) put her hand up. She's a city firefighter, so this was a whole new ball-game. "You don't have the luxury of standpipes to connect to," she says. Instead, the helicopter would dash off to the Derwent River and suck up 1600 litres of water a time into its tank, then fly back up the hill and dump it onto the flames, or into a portable dam - like an oversized paddling pool - with pump-driven hoses running off it. Wigston joined in the grunt work of "blackening out" the ground - turning over logs, raking out the embers and the hot white ash, making sure the fire was well and truly dead. It was gruelling work, but not a single home was lost.

The 36-year-old, who was Tasmanian open tennis champion in her youth, joined the fire service 10 years ago with one rule: "I always said I would never date a firefighter." Well, that didn't last long. She met fireman Barry Bones on a shift, and the kindness he showed her when her dad died "won my heart", she says. They're married now, and she's a mum to Ryan, seven, and Gabby, five, and stepmum to Chelsea, 10.

She's also one of only three women among Hobart's 120 professional firefighters - and that suits her fine. "I prefer being in a male-dominated workplace," she says. "Blokes are really direct, they just come straight out with what they're thinking. I like that, it's refreshing." A little ribbing is only to be expected, though. "I'll get a fair bit of flack for representing the RATs once and getting my photo in the magazine," she says.