Retained stations

[pumprescue]

I am surprised that SAMFS retained staff are allowed to be in other agencies, would make it hard to maintain membership requirements for each agency, after all, you are hired by SAMFS to essentially provide cover 100% of the time, with a minimum of 50% to keep your spot, how would you be if your out with SES doing searches or RCR's and the MFS turn up, please explain ! Likewise if your on a strike team , please explain. MFS retained are only allowed to hire just enough for a crew for each truck plus a spare, so I wouldn't want to jepardise my spot. Mind you most of them are as slow as a wet week getting out the door.

[uniden]

I am surprised that SAMFS retained staff are allowed to be in other agencies, would make it hard to maintain membership requirements for each agency, after all, you are hired by SAMFS to essentially provide cover 100% of the time, with a minimum of 50% to keep your spot, how would you be if your out with SES doing searches or RCR's and the MFS turn up, please explain ! Likewise if your on a strike team , please explain. MFS retained are only allowed to hire just enough for a crew for each truck plus a spare, so I wouldn't want to jepardise my spot. Mind you most of them are as slow as a wet week getting out the door.

That is not correct, MFS retained stations generally have enough staff to man the appliances almost twice over. Yes there is a requirement to attend 50% of callouts but no one expects you to be around 100% of the time.
For example Kapunda would have around 9 staff for one appliance at the other end of the scale Mt Gambier has a cap of 25 retained staff for three apppliances plus a ROSA.

[pumprescue]

Be nice if they were allowed more than that Uniden, to help get them out the door.

Sorry if this is off topic, but do retained station have a requirement to default after a certain time ? The reason I ask is that there are some extremely bad response times from some retained stations. Yet you rarely if ever see them default. The one's I can pick up on my scanner are shocking, more than 10 mins most of the time sometimes blown out to 20 mins. Is this perhaps due to the rule I heard they had that you MUST have at least a senior before you can respond, even if you have crew ?

[uniden]

Be nice if they were allowed more than that Uniden, to help get them out the door.

Sorry if this is off topic, but do retained station have a requirement to default after a certain time ? The reason I ask is that there are some extremely bad response times from some retained stations. Yet you rarely if ever see them default. The one's I can pick up on my scanner are shocking, more than 10 mins most of the time sometimes blown out to 20 mins. Is this perhaps due to the rule I heard they had that you MUST have at least a senior before you can respond, even if you have crew ?

Maybe we should move this to a new thread , MFS retained stations?? Moderators. MFS retained stations are required to acknowledge a page within 4 minutes to Adelaide Fire otherwise they can be defaulted.
Same as CFS stations. But acknowledging the page of course doesnt guarantee a crew. It is up to the staff on station to make a decision about how long they will wait for crew before they recognise that an additional resource should be responded.

20 minutes is not acceptable obviously. Yes there is a requirement for there to be a Senior Firefighter or Station Officer in the appliance before it responds.