How do you see the service in the future

[Good times]

What do you think we will be like in 20 years?

I see a reduction in our urban type work eg the EMA brigades going etc, perhaps going along the lines of the Rural Fire Service in NSW, I could even see more of a combination of the services. I can see the current top 10 brigades falling by the wayside or having a reduction to a more rural role, I can see the SAMFS retained perhaps shifting from the country areas to the busier urban area's perhaps having your Salisbury, Dalkieth, and other border stations perhaps being retained in combined SAMFS stations to handle the rural work (imagine that, no more fixed alarms!!), perhaps even under the SAFECOM banner.

This is all purely what is floating around in my head and more than likely would never happen, but thats what I think when I sit down and look at the way things are today.

What do you think it will be like in the future?

[fire03rescue]

I joined the CFS in the late 80's and was told that in about 10 years that we might be retained or taken over.

Still waiting    Well I hope nothing changes

[Good times]

Yeah, like I said, just what I think, doesn't mean it will happen, but seems more plausable as time goes on, it aint getting any easier to get crews for day work etc.

[JamesGar]

I sort of agree with you Good Times, can see some change in fringe metro and busy areas of CFS taking a step back from the high urban demands and focusing more on just rural fire fighting, although I'd have to say that in a lot of areas a going urban incident would get responses from the rural brigade as well.

Don't know what the pollies have planned but I'd like to see CFS, SES and MFS all under one banner, e.g. SAFECOM, and have quoted this throughout the forum (been shot down for it too!) Transition of volunteer brigades to retained... Why pay someone to do the job, when you can under equip and send a volunteer out to do the same job! SAAS probably has a similar situation with areas like Goolwa (who are often busier that a number of full time career station!)

I guess only time will tell!

[Good times]

Yes its interesting, imagine for example James if your brigade was an MFS retained station, wonder what equipment you would have, seems to be a decent gap there!!

[JamesGar]

Can't agree with you more, there is definitely an equity issue between services, and I don't mean the they've got what I want ******, but more the issue of supply. I feel CFS volunteers have a somewhat limited voice in equipment and appliance design and specific needs. Works both ways as well. Looked over one of the MFS grass fire units the other day. Interesting appliance, but need to ask why wasn't the standard CFS 14 appropriate? Why do two fire services in one state who get funding from one fund source there own vehicle design and equipment. I'm happy that at least PPE seems to be covered with the new LION gear, but ****** that the MFS are getting the reflective tap changed so they don't look like CFS...why?

[corocfs]

my personal thoughts only:

i think that we will see a lot of changes to paid/retained/vollie stations in the coming 10 years or so...

i think most urban fringe areqas will soon become paid or retained stations and most (if not all of us will get the boot), until we can come back and apply with all qaulifications asked for by SAMFS for retainees or whatever organisation ends up running it.

im guessing everyone realises that if areas covered by CFS become MFS retained stations that theyre not going to let us just stay and keep playing... anyone that wishes to remain a fire fighter will have to pass medicals, physicals and aptitude tests... and i dont mean to be rude but i dont think a lot of ppl in the cfs would pass all of these with ease.

but going back to station status/organisation title chantge in urban areas... take the sturt group area for example. i can imagine that as a minimum, blackwood, belair and ededn hills stations will all be closed (or shutdown for all urban work and possibly only asked to backup SAMFS on big incidents) and a single MFS appliance and station put in blackwood area somewhere (swapping 7 trucks for 1)

(still just regarding this one fringe of the city)

or maybe they'll shut down all of sturt group and all of mawson and just place a MFS station in blackwood and  another in happy valley somewhere, then in comparison to current MFS response areas, they will still have an adequate element of fire cover

this isnt very far fetched at all when you think about it, because from what ive heard MFS have already tried to shutdown sturt group CFS before and place a station in blackwood but local council prevented them from doing so.

just food for thought anyway... but keep in mind, if we do become retained, they wont keep us all.

[corocfs]

Transition of volunteer brigades to retained... Why pay someone to do the job, when you can under equip and send a volunteer out to do the same job! SAAS probably has a similar situation with areas like Goolwa (who are often busier that a number of full time career station!)

from what i understand SAAS stations status (paid or vollie) is based on population size and assets. for instance pt pitire SAAS station averages three or four calls a day, but they are fully staffed with two day crews and one night crew and one on call night crew all the time. this is due to assets such as pazminco the smelter (is that even how u spell it?)

[fire03rescue]

Get your facts correct re closing down Sturt Group
"heard MFS have already tried to shutdown sturt group CFS before and place a station in blackwood but local council prevented them from doing so"
This is not correct, but about 12 years ago Burnside was nearly closed down. But the council vote was 5 to 4 to keep them. This was a cost issue

[kat]

James I am sorry that you feel that you have been "shot down" for airing  your views on merging MFS/CFS/SES. I would expect these kind of issues to be hotly debated and extreme opinions expressed from all sides. Having a different take from someone is different from shooting them down, I hope. I think your views are, to a fair degree, shared by a lot of the stakeholders in this issue. It's certainly something that policy makers have been looking at for several decades. SAFECOM is definately serious about reform and before too long we should start to see some changes.
And it's proabably inevitable that some vollies will not like them.

As corocfs pointed out

anyone that wishes to remain a fire fighter will have to pass medicals, physicals and aptitude tests... and i dont mean to be rude but i dont think a lot of ppl in the cfs would pass all of these with ease

This is a distinct possibility and I guess that if you had spent the last twenty years or longer devoting every spare minute to the service (sometimes to the detriment of your employment or personal relationships), going to jobs, training, fundraising, meetings, maintaining the equipment, admin etc and as discussed here maybe even had input into the design of the vehicles in your station (or built them and the station for that matter) and then one day your Brigade became under the banner of another organisation and you were all no longer required. You're replaced by people selected under the new organisations selection criteria (a few of your existing members may get in) most of who wouldn't have dreamed of setting foot in the door before an hourly rate applied. Your carefully designed and built appliances are replaced and years of local knowledge and experience of the kind that only can be gained through time is lost. Now all this may well be in the interests of public safety and providing communities with the best possible emergency service but I can't for a second believe that it would (or will) be an easy or straightforward transition.

[Mike]

Change is an enevitable thing. Not always liked, but, as evolution dictates serves a purpose. As I mentioned in a previous thead, the merging of services would be a great (if not fantastic) plan.

Like me, for some it would be a welcome change, reduce doubling of resources and tensions between people trying to achive the same thing(i wouldnt have to carry 2 pagers either!) Unfortunately others see change as a very scary thing and will oppose it at all costs. (maybe those that stand to lose the most).

i can imagine a combination of paid/volunter staff running stations with the level of administration stuff to do these days. Paid to run the joint, but others can still do the work.

Either way we can only hope that there is at least some consultation of the volunteers before all the grand master plans are made and thrust upon us.

It will be an interesting time ahead, hopefully something to look forward to....

[corocfs]

Get your facts correct re closing down Sturt Group
"heard MFS have already tried to shutdown sturt group CFS before and place a station in blackwood but local council prevented them from doing so"
This is not correct, but about 12 years ago Burnside was nearly closed down. But the council vote was 5 to 4 to keep them. This was a cost issue

i said heard mate...i didnt say i had rock solid evidence. i dunno mate, maybe your from burnside and ****** that they tried to shut you down or something...
but from what i have been told by a few ppl (of which have actually lived in the area for the last thirty years (parts of my family included) there was a move to have an MFS full time station placed in blackwood, but it was shot down in flames (get the pun.. harhar. **lame i know**__) by council and outcry by locals

[JamesGar]

Alright, I think this has got a bit heated! My view is that SA will never do without volunteer fire fighters. Even in fringe and metro areas a fully staffed career service wouldn't be able to supply enough numbers for a medium to large campaign fire (say 3rd Alram Grass Fire in MT Osmond!) I'd say there would be a bit of a public uproar if CFS was disbanned and reign given to MFS. However in saying that I see in some areas the growing need for change, a decrease in volunteer workload, and this may come in the CFS having career or retained firefighter or the MFS starting in different areas, but retaining current brigades for rural and back up work.

Change is good, productive and regularly need, if we (and this means all emergency services) don't change then we will sadly disapear. We need to embrace change and look proactively to the future, and not dwell on what has been said in the past.  

[Mike]

Well said

[Firefrog]

Great discussion! Lets just remember to play nice. We don't want harsh words. Please debate the issues but keep it professional and not targeted at the person posting.

[CFS_Firey]

I think the CFS should be given more credit for what it does... there are brigades out there doing 300+ calls a year, and in my opinion, once a brigade is attending that many incidents, its not fair for the govenment to expect that commitment for free...
With the new duel response SOP's the number of call outs will increase for a lot of brigades, and although I'm not in favour of MFS taking over, something needs to be done...

[kat]

As another post states stats from last year show there were only 4 Brigades that attended over 300 calls and, in fact, only 0.07% of Brigades did more than 100 calls a year. My guess is the MFS would happily take on those 4 Brigade areas. But I agree it would be nice to gain some credit for what it is we do.

But anyway, what dual response SOP? And how new?

[CFS_Firey]

I was referring to duel brigade responses - Having to respond 2 brigades to fixed alarms etc. Also the compulsery 2nd Alarm to fires on Fire ban days... I don't know when they were brought in, but I assume its a contributing facter to rising call out numbers...
(Is that a state wide SOP, or a Mt lofty group thing??)

[Good times]

We also do 2nd alarm on fire ban days, but its a good thing, been a long time since this area (adelaide hills) lost any fires af any significence, hit em hard, you can always turn them round!! Just look at Mt Osmond fire, good save there, and people thought it was crazy hitting the fire with so many appliance to start with.

[CFS_Firey]

I agree... I'm all for it... I mean, like we always so, as soon as it saves one life, its worth it...
Any idea how many trucks they had a Mt Osmond by Late afternoon? I get the impression that if the other fire hadn't been controlled Jan 11th may have been a different story for the hills...

[strikeathird]

I think we might see a scenario like CFA... Paid and Vol. Fire Fighters in the same stations....

(Not 'neccessarily' SAMFS and SAMFS Retained but possibly SAMFS and CFS in the one station)  - SAMFS being the Perm. Full time crew, CFS backing them up for Rural support and when SAMFS are tied up.

[rescue5271]

I would say that sometime over the next five years that there will be some big changes with in the CFS/SES/MFS/ST JOHN.what these will be is still a guessing game. There will still be those brigades that do 300 calls per year aslong as there members are willing to answer the call,one the time comes that members are unable to answer the call then I would say that paid staff would work along side volunters like they do in CFA(VIC) .

This would mean that CFS would have paid firefighter or that MFS would be co - locateded into CFS stations,sure there are big hudles to jump to get this up and running and I am sure that this could be done.

I can also see rural towns that only have one appliances finding it harder to get the truck out the door due to a drop in member numbers and there for a large country town like Naracoorte will be called to all call outs with in the group and groups that border that group. Our roll may also be one of medical calls as SAAS become more busy and the same problems that they have with volunteers will mean that they can not get out the door.



the future is one full of the good,the bad and the brave.