BACKGROUND - ACT Legislative Assembly

Submission No. 3 Hall Volunteer Rural Fire Brigade
HALL VOLUNTEER RURAL FIRE BRIGADE
12 September 2014
Dr Andrea Cullen
Committee Secretary
Standing Committee on Public Accounts
Inquiry into Auditor-General's Report No. 5 of 2013: BUSHFIRE PREPAREDNESS
Legislative Assembly for the ACT
GPO Box 1020
CANBERRA CITY ACT 2601
I thank you on behalf of the Hall Volunteer Rural Fire Brigade (Hall Brigade)for this opportunity to provide
our commentary in relation to the Auditor-General's Report No. 5 of 2013 into Bushfire Preparedness.
Although we have reviewed the entire report, the Brigade feels best placed to make comment on those
sections of the report that impact on volunteer rural firefighters - namely the role of RFS volunteers in more
generally effecting the Strategic Bushfire Management Plan, Regional Fire Management Plans and Bushfire
Operational Plans. We understand that in preparing the A-G's Report, consultation with volunteers, the
largest workforce base for the ACT RFS, was very limited and we welcome this opportunity to identify areas
of concern in our preparedness, rather than commenting on the specific recommendations in the Report.
BACKGROUND
The Hall Brigade was first established in the summer of 1943 - 44 becoming the third of the four official
brigades operating in the ACT - Mulligan's Flat, Weetangera and Tuggeranong. Today, Hall is the only
remaining brigade of the original four and is the oldest volunteer rural fire brigade in the ACT.
The rural I urban interface in the Hall region has expanded significantly in the last 10 years and is expected
to continue to increase with the development of the suburbs of Moncrief, Casey, Jacka, Taylor, West .
Macgregor, Dunlop, Lawson South and the proposed 4500 home West Belconnen cross-border project;
which is expected to begin in 2015 along the Murrumbidgee River corridor. 1 Consequently we believe the
need for emergency services will only continue to increase in the Hall area with a greater number of homes
forming the urban interface with the surrounding bush and grasslands. While there may be an opportunity
for an additional ACT Fire & Rescue station (or stations) and Community Fire Units in the area, the ACT Rural
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Canberra Times, S June 2013.
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Fire Service will more than likely need to play an increased role in ensuring the safety of people and property
and greater efficiencies and additional fire resources will be critical.
We concur with the report's conclusion that there is a worrying lack of resource and IMT planning and that
areas of development for volunteers in incident management are not being strategically developed. In
addition to this resoruces are not shared to ensure a whole of agency approach, in keeping with the
principles of the Australasian Inter-Agency Incident Management System.
Resource allocation for bushfire suppression
At present, ACT Fire & Rescue have urban pumpers, compressed air foam system (CAFS) trucks, four wheel
drive bushfire tankers (both light tankers and heavy tankers) and specialised trucks, e.g. breathing apparatus,
HazMat, etc. While the urban pumpers and specialised trucks support Fire & Rescue's primary operations,
Hall Brigade continues to have difficulty understanding why Fire & Rescue have four wheel drive bushfire
tankers and to some extent CAFS units. In effect, this means that three services in the ACT have
responsibility and resourcing for dealing with bushfires, with two of those agencies being paid firefighters
(i.e. Fire & Rescue and Parks Brigade).
Hall Brigade believes that the current structure of three agencies being tasked and resourced to respond to
bushfires leads to inefficiencies and may lead to poorer outcomes for the ACT community. For example:
•
The time required for an ACT Fire & Rescue crew to return to station after attending a grass fire in
their four wheel drive bushfire tanker and change into their urban pumper may lead to slower
response times to incidents that only ACT Fire & Rescue is equipped and trained to carry out, e.g.
HAZMAT, structural fires and rescue situations.
•
We understand that during higher fire danger periods ACT Fire & Rescue calls in additional crews to
mobilise both their urban pumpers and bushfire trucks. This is particularly frustrating when
volunteers with equivalent national qualifications in basic firefighting remain ready to respond but
are unable to fill one of the limited spots in their own Brigade vehicles because we have more
volunteers than resources.
Our suggested approach
We propose that in days of high fire danger that ACT RFS volunteers staff ACT Fire & Rescue's four wheel
drive bushfire tankers. Alternately the tankers and light units and their associated budgets could be
reallocated to the ACT Rural Fire Service and TAMS (Parks Brigade) to increase the resourcing for these
agencies.
Further, we suggest that only Parks Brigade and the ACT Rural Fire Service be responded to grass and
bushfires in the first instance, both within the urban and rural areas. ACT Fire & Rescue would continue to
provide associated asset protection to the urban edge.
Communications to ensure effective incident control
Effective communications are vital in emergency services work as it enables resources to be allocated
efficiently, situation reports broadcast for an evolving incident and information provided to the public in a
timely fashion. While radio communications using the Territory Radio Network (TRN) between ACT
emergency services works despite known blackspots, when emergency services are required to
communicate with agencies external to the ACT, the TRN system becomes problematic.
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The ACT RFS works in close collaboration with other rural fire services, particularly the NSW Rural Fire
Service and Country Fire Authority (Victoria). The ACT continues to support these fellow agencies by
deploying rural fire service strike teams into NSW and Victoria to assist in the management of major
incidents; much as they did for us in 2003. In fact, Hall Brigade's location sees us regularly enter into NSW to
assist our sister brigades, notably the Wallaroo and Springfield Volunteer Rural Fire Brigades.
A constant problem and frustration that we encounter when supporting our counterparts, particularly in
NSW, is the difficulty in communicating with them. Hall Brigade originally installed UHF CB radios at the
J;lrigade's cost to overcome these issues, with some success. However, although the TRN system does have
some NSW RFS channels programmed into it for ACT crew use, it was found during recent strike team
deployments to the Blue Mountains (NSW) in October 2013 that not all of the relevant channels were
programmed. This obviously was very frustrating and lead to inefficiencies in communicating vital
information.
Our suggested approach
We suggest the TRN operability be reviewed with our interstate counterparts, particularly with regard to
NSW. As a minimum Hall Brigade suggests that all of the NSW channels need to be available to ACT units
and vice versa.
An alternative might be to integrate the two different radio systems (ACT and NSW) so that units in both
jurisdictions are comfortable with operating in that particular network. There may also be cost savings and
efficiencies by leveraging off NSW's radio network coverage.
Suitability of fire suppression vehicles
Hall Brigade has concerns regarding the suitability and efficacy of some of the firetrucks that are supplied.
The central tents to our concerns are based on:
• The lack of input volunteers have in equipment design;
• The inability or unwillingness to adapt designs where flaws have been identified or modifications that
could further improve the utility of the equipment are recognised; and
• Whether ACT taxpayers are receiving "value for money" from the equipment that the ACT RFS
procures.
For example, Hall 31, a medium tanker, was provided to the Hall Brigade as a replacement for our light unit, Hall 21 (a
Toyota Landcruiser utility) that has since been re-resourced to Parks Brigade. Its body was of a different design to our
existing medium unit, Hall 30, with the notable omission of a ride on cannon bay area behind the vehicle's cab to
provide pursuit firefighting capabilities. We understand that the canon bay was not included due to the hazard of
vehicle roll over, potentially resulting in the risk of bodily harm or death to firefighters operating from the canon bay.
As a Brigade, we deeply appreciate and respect any action that seeks to eliminate or mitigate the risk to
firefighters in undertaking their role. However, looking beyond the merits of the risk assessment, which has
not been provided to Hall Brigade despite repeated requests and assurances that it would be forthcoming,
there is an inconsistency with managing this risk as brigades are still permitted to use canon bays on other
vehicles. We consider the omission of a ride on firefighting capacity has severely limited the operational
effectiveness of Hall 31 and in fact renders firefighters operating from the vehicle open to other hazards.
Potential hazards we have identified operating from a walk behind vehicle include:
• firefighters operating on foot in close proximity to vehicles on the fire line, potentially leading to a
pedestrian and vehicle accident;
•
continued dragging of hoses at accelerated pace, particularly knocking down grass fires, leading to
increased levels of firefighter fatigue;
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•
a firefighter being exposed to significant radiant heat due to a lack of protection from the cannon bay;
and
•
if fire conditions rapidly change, a firefighter may be left exposed away from the vehicle and be
overrun by fire.
Members of the ACT RFS office have suggested that these concerns could be addressed by utilising Hall 31's
spray bars and/or holding onto a hose out of the truck cabin windows. However, we believe the fire size
that the spray bars could effectively fight would be very small, the risk of musculoskeletal injuries to
passengers who are leaning out of the vehicle's passenger window with a hose, not to mention the hazards
associated with a hose draping down the truck's side or over the top of the vehicle that enables the
passenger to fight the fire, render these options untenable. This method of firefighting was briefly used at
the Gooromon Ponds I Wallaroo Rd grassfire in December 2012 and firefighters found operating from Hall
31 in this grass fire situation ineffective, extremely cumbersome and problematic.
As a Brigade we have expressed our frustrations with Hall 31 to the ACT RFS office and suggested that the
tray be modified to include a canon bay and/or that a monitor be added that could be operated remotely
from the vehicle's cabin. We feel that both options could be readily undertaken and prove simple, costeffective solutions to our concerns. Unfortunately we have not received a positive response from the ACT
RFS office on this matter to date and consequently Hall Brigade has been left to develop its own prototype
remote monitor utilising the skill, knowledge and resources of our members to remedy this situation (as we
would not be permitted to modify the vehicle to achieve a cannon bay area).
We feel that the ACT and regional community would be disappointed to learn that this vehicle is effectively
only fit for mopping up and storm damage operations and that fire fighters' safety may be compromised by
using this vehicle in knock-down grassfire situations - which are typical of Hall Brigade's area.
Our suggested approach
We propose the following:
• the ACT RFS significantly increase the consultation with volunteer firefighters in the design of
equipment;
• the ACT RFS be open to adapting designs where flaws have been identified or modifications that
could further improve the utility of equipment are recognised; and
• ensure equipment being procured is "value for money" and fit for purpose regarding the activities
that ACT rural firefighters undertake.
We would also suggest that closer consideration be given to leveraging off the NSW Rural Fire Service's
vehicle procurement arrangements which may achieve a reduced vehicle cost, thus potentially enabling the
ACT Rural Fire Service to purchase additional fire appliances within the same budget. Similar vehicles may
also assist in cross-border situations where ACT and NSW crews may be required to cross-crew on the same
truck.
Command Structure -Group Officers
At present, there are four group officers operating in the ACT RFS. Their role is to:
• provide operational and managerial leadership and advice to brigades;
• participate in the management of the service by providing advice and guidance to the Chief Officer
and RFS staff on issues relating to brigades, members and the RFS;
• at Level 1 incidents, they may take control only at the request of the incident controller on scene;
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•
•
at Level 2/3 incidents they may undertake a variety of incident roles at the request of the incident
management team; and
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any operational role as directed by the Chief Officer.
While these are valuable functions, Hall Brigade feels that these roles are already available within brigades'
own existing structures and are undertaken by their members, e.g. each brigade has a Captain, who is
supported by a Senior Deputy Captain and Deputy Captains. Individuals who hold these positions are highly
experienced and skilled incident controllers.
In addition, the relatively small size of the ACT does not lend itself to group officers. The NSW Rural Fire
Service has group officers in its structure, however we understand that within NSW's structure one group
officer will generally cover an area larger than the ACT.
We also believe the resourcing the ACT RFS provides to the group officer positions, e.g. full-time leased
vehicles, would be better utilised in other areas, particularly with the limited financial environment
confronting the ACT RFS.
Our suggested approach
Hall Brigade suggests that the group officer positions within the ACT RFS structure be abolished.
Training
At present, the ACT RFS' reliance on centralised training courses coordinated by the group officers, e.g. the
Basic Firefighter course, has created a bottleneck that Hall Brigade has found extremely frustrating. Several
group officers also expressed some dismay and frustration during the September 2013 Training Officers'
meeting at the lack of assistance they have received from brigades in terms of tankers and crew leaders for
the Basic Firefighter course. The group officers also highlighted how problematic it was when new recruits
undertaking the Basic Firefighter course were unavailable for certain days or modules and time had to be
created to train and assess these people at some other stage. It would seem to Hall Brigade that if brigades
were once more able to provide courses, such as Basic Firefighter, these matters would no longer be issues
and could be addressed for little cost and no time requirements on group officers.
While the Basic Firefighter course has been used as an example, we feel that the same methodology should
be applied to training volunteer firefighters in other courses. Already some courses utilise the dual training
opportunity pathway through brigades and centralisation, e.g. the Advanced Firefighter modules, and Hall
Brigade fully supports this.
Balancing time commitments between family, work and volunteering is a continuing challenge for volunteers
and the current approach by ACT RFS and ESA to training is not always supportive. Hall Brigade believes that
there may be an opportunity to increase participation rates in courses and increase the number of courses
able to be physically run, while reducing the administration requirements and amount of face-to-face time
between student and assessor without compromising training outcomes. For example, the first aid course
coordinated by the ESA Training area utilises a pre-reading I pre-watching regime of a DVD that also includes
a test, the results of which students are required to bring in to the practical training as evidence of their
completion.
The pre-course first aid DVD eliminates a large proportion of face-to-face time covering theory that students
are able to go through in their own preferred time, at their own pace and at their convenient location.
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ACT Rural Fire Service, Standard Operating Procedure 3.10 Group Officers, 15 February 2011.
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While the theory is covered prior to the students' face-to-face session with their instructor, the instructors
are still able to cover key theory components during the session and students are also able and encouraged
to ask theory questibns during this time. Utilising a theory pre-reading/test approach where practicable
would likely:
•
•
•
reduce the face-to-face time commitments of both students and trainers/assessors;
reduce the time required to coordinate a course as there may only need to be one common day or
session to be found between participants rather than two, three or however many; and
encourage greater participation in ACT RFS training as it is easier to undertake a training course .
Our suggested approach
We suggest that as new training and assessment materials are developed or existing materials are reviewed
that a focus on making each course as "volunteer-friendly" as possible, is considered. Materials to assist
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with on line learning (e.g. chainsaw operations ) and material preparation (e .g. pump operations and
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navigation ) are available and should be made readily available to volunteers.
We also suggest that greater autonomy and support be provided to brigades to enable them to run
nationally recognised training in-house within their brigade structure. Hall Brigade believes this would lead
to greater flexibility in learning delivery, lessen the resource requirements on the ACT RFS office and
ultimately lead to better outcomes and more highly skilled firefighters. The opportunity to provide
specialised training or tailor individual skills development would also be heightened and this could and
should be immediately applied to incident management team training and ensuring RFS volunteers are able
to fill those roles.
Work Capacity Test
Hall Brigade members have expressed their opposition and concern in regard to the current ACT RFS Work
Capacity Test and the lack of consistency in its administration. Members view the test as inadequate and not
fit-for-pu rpose in assessing the physical suitability of tanker-based vo lunteer firefighters to meet the
fieldwork conditions required within the ACT RFS. In addition, we believe that the work capacity test is
actually indirectly discriminatory as it does not provide an allowance in regards to gender, height or age. We
have rece ived independent legal advice suggesting our concerns are well founded. Hall Brigade members'
doctors have also raised strong concerns regarding potential damage to participants' lower backs, knees and
ankles by undertaking the test .
In light of recent predictions by the Climate Council as noted in The Canberra Times oflO December 2013 for
the need for significantly increased numbers of rural firefighters, we would have thought unnecessary
barriers to volunteering such as this Test will not support the ongoing growth of a resilient and dedicated
volunteer rural firefighting service for the region. Certainly other state associations representing volunteer
rural firefighters have noted the introduction of the same Test in their service would cripple their current
volunteer numbers by as much as 80%.
Hall Brigade has continued to voice its reservations regarding this matter and even provided a discussion
paper to the ACT RFS and other ACT brigades in early 2012 highlighting our concerns and making
recommendations to address what we perceive as shortcomings. To date the ACT RFS office has not
acknowledged this paper and continues to assert the work capacity test be undertaken before personnel
enter a fireground .
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4
Workspace Training, www.workspacetraini ng.com.au, accessed 14 February 2014.
Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council, www.afac.com.au, access 14 February 2014.
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Our suggested approach
We propose that the Work Capacity Test , with its questionable suitability, indirect discrimination and
potential for injury, be scrapped. Instead, we suggest that every volunteer rural firefighter attend an annual
medical check with t heir personal general practitioner, which is reimbursed through Medicare and the ACT
Government covers any "gap".
Hall Brigade believes that general practitioners would be eminently more qualified to assess a person's
ability to handle the unique nature of our work having regard to the patient's previous medical history. In
addition, the medical check may also examine eye health, hearing and any psychological or other physical
impairm ents that are not assessed as part of the Work Capacity Test. Not only would this approach ensure
the ACT has physically fit and mentally healthy firefighters but it may also encourage other members in the
general community, particularly men, to seek regular medical check-ups.
Finally, in order to ensure that volunteer fire fighting remains a viable activity into the future, planning,
financial modelling and policy development within government must take account of and to some degree
reflect, the views of volunteer fire fighters, who have a better idea of what might constitute long term
sustainability in their environments and work/life balance and ongoing resilience. For this and the reasons
outlined in this submission, it is important that volunteer brigades be continually provided with the
opportunity to provide strong and cohesive input into the review of the Service or in implementing improved
preparedness and response to bushfires. We thank you for this opportunity to comment more generally on
issues affecting the operational readiness and preparedness of my members.
We wish you well in your deliberations and of course hope for a bushfire free 2014-15 fire season.
Kind regards
c/C~O-Jf?/c!WlJ
Melissa Riches
President
Hall Volunteer Rural Fire Brigade
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