Bush fire response

[Sandgroper]

Hi from West Australia Fire & Rescue 

Just a question: When we have large bush fires say 3rd alarm and higher we send many inner metro stations that include one pump and one tanker 20-40 kms to the outer metro area to build up resources. Obviously the consequence of this is very poor coverage in those metro areas. We do the same for "fire watch" where our crews watch the fire over the night shift. Does the SA Fire Brigade do the same?

Thanks

Sandgroper

[bittenyakka]

Hi
welcome

In SA the SAMFS can send trucks to bushfires, usually this is only seen in the urban interface areas where the MFS truck would normally be on the 2nd or 3rd  alarm response. The SAMFS can respond up to 2 strike teams into bushfire at the request of the IC usually for asset protection duties.

The short answer to your question however is generally no. the CFS vollies will more often than not do the entire job from going to complete.

hope that helps

[Pipster]

And in most cases, the MFS pumpers are not allowed off the bitumen, so in a 20-40 km radius of the City, they become relatively ineffective, due to not being able to access areas the fire is going in.  (A fair potion of the hills face zone - that is the hills to the East of Adelaide, around 10-15 km out of the city is National Park, with dirt tracks).

Add to that a high concentration of CFS brigades within the 20-40 km radius of the city, generally with appliances more suited to the off road stuff than MFS, then MFS don't tend to respond with a large number of appliances.

However, they do seem to be used for asset protection in the urban / rural interface (also close to the city!) where they can park on the bitumen road & plug into the mains......   

Pip