Last i heard, all the regions have a TIC in the office... definitely 1, 2 &3.
Niiice... Awesome waste of resources that is. I hope they don't mind coming when I call for it. But of course you can't give it to one brigade and not others, as multiple brigades in a region have a case for having one.
Bajdas, yeah your suggestions are great, no issue with them at all.
Chook, some volly brigades have that equipment interstate, but at the same time the CFS is pretty unique having the area of responsibility that it does (Fire, Rescue, Hazmat) and being 110% volunteer at brigade level.
How 'this' was allowed to happen is pretty simple. The CFS likes to focus on rural fires and tends to forget that it attends structure fires (For evidence look at the 'pumpers' and what they issue as a Halligan Tool) The CFS motto of "Come home safe" needs to be looked at in all senses of the job that we do, and unfortunately it too often comes down to the OIC because there are not SOP's written, apart from two in, two out.
In terms of me having my mind made up about certain things, yeah I do, but at the same time so do you. The last line of your post "in SA, SES = Rescue no matter how tongue in cheek could not be further from the truth. You have to realise that there are forms of rescue that the SES are just not capable of and entering a burning building to pull out firies and civvies happens to be one of them.
Having fellow firies not knowing what to do has nothing to do with training - as there is no formal traiing for rapid intervention. The problem arises when you have volunteer emergency services having to take what they get in terms of members. There are many people in my brigade that I don't feel that I can rely on, but they are available during the day and other hours, so they are voted in as members. Its the same thing in some of the local SES units. You obviously have your head around things but its a far cry from the units I've delt with. At the end of the day, you take what you can get so that you can provide a service to a minimum standard.
I don't quite see how you can view the procurement of funds to protect the lives of firefighters by training people in how to go about rescuing their own colleagues as not making sense. SAMFS have the equipment and the training because on the whole the are a decent fire service.
You talk of duplication if the CFS upskilled and re-equipped to deal with this issue as though its something that the SES could undertake now. For the SES to undertake the rescue of firefighters, wouldn't they need firefighting PPE? Training in firefighting and search and rescue techniques? As well as a multitude of other things that would essentially turn them into firefighters?
Of course the decision is not mine or yours, I did not start this topic of *discussion* for a decision to be made. I wanted to find out what other CFS (YES, CFS not SES) brigades did in terms of preparing for the possibility of having to rescue a downed firefighter.
Can we please try and leave the discussion as to which agency should do what out of every discussion of rescue?
Hair, the TIC's no doubt worked like crap as they are not really designed for use at bushfires. Take them into a structure and they are pretty much god's gift to firefighting - Both during and after the fire. If you use them to look at the ground after a bushfire has gone through, then all you're going to get is a nice white screen (because its ALL hot). Once you have a significant temperature difference between items, they work great. TIC's produced these days tend to be able to distinguish between 0.5 degrees Celsius. But I still am at a loss as to how they were used on KI as anything more than a PR exercise.
Bittenyakka, it depends what you want the TIC for. They are great for S&R as well as overhaul. Yeah, they will be useless for S&R if they are not there on the truck, but they still can be used and brought from the office for overhaul.
Phew... I'm done now!
