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The CFS Logo
style="font-size: larger;" | SA Country Fire Service
Established: 1976
Regions:6
Specialities:Combatant Authority for Fire, Rescue and Hazmat
Volunteers:~16,800
Paid Staff:70
Brigades:434
Location:South Australia
Website Official CFS Website

The Country Fire Service is a volunteer based fire service in the state of South Australia in Australia. Many parts of Australia are sparsely populated whilst at the same time they are under significant risk of bushfire. Due to economics, it is prohibitively expensive for each Australian town or village to have a paid fire service (department). The compromise adopted is to have government funded equipment and training but volunteer fire-fighters to perform the duties of regular fire-fighters.

In South Australia, the name for the volunteer service is the CFS. Other Australian States and Territories have their own service, such as the Country Fire Authority in the state of Victoria (Australia) and the Rural Fire Service in the state of New South Wales.

In the state capital Adelaide, a conventional paid service exists, called the SA Metropolitan Fire Service (SAMFS). A handful of large towns in South Australia also have retained 'Metro' or 'MFS' services, but the vast majority (over 430 communities) rely on the CFS.

About the CFS

The Country Fire Service (CFS) is the volunteer combatant authority for firefighting, road crash, and hazardous materials in the country region of South Australia (SA). Their official mission is "To protect life, property and the environment from fire and other emergencies whilst protecting and supporting our personnel and continuously improving."

A unique look

The Country Fire Service is different to most fire services world wide, in that the fire appliances are painted white, rather than red. This has many benefits, especially in visibility on road, and in thick smoke, but also has the disadvantage that they are sometimes not perceived by the public as fire trucks. The day/night striping down the sides of appliances is either the old silver and red standard (as seen in most images on this page), or a newer red and gold chequering. The red and gold chequering provides much better visibility, particularly for crews working on roads.

Fire fighters wear yellow protective clothing, with a two-piece set being the standard (Bunker pants, and turn out coat). With the introduction of PBI Gold (improved structural fire-fighting clothing), some CFS volunteers are now seen wearing yellow/brown coloured clothing. Most turn out coats have "CFS" or "FIRE" on the back in reflective writing. More modern jackets also have day/night striping around the sleeves and bottom of the jacket. Safety Vests are provided for work on the roads. these have "Fire", "Rescue", or "CFS" on both front and back in reflective writing.

Fire fighters' helmets are white, (senior fire fighters have a red stripe), with the fire fighters surname on the back of the helmet in reflective, glow in the dark writing. Lieutenants and Captains have yellow helmets (the captain has a red stripe), and Deputy Group Officers and above have red helmets. Regional staff have a blue stripe on their helmet.

Divisions

The CFS is made up of brigades which are grouped into groups, which are again grouped into Regions. There are six regions in SA, and 55 groups. The CFS consists of around 434 brigades and 16,400 volunteers (11,800 fire fighters, 3,400 Auxiliary and 1000 cadets).

Strike teams

A "strike team" is a deployment of appliances out of their usual area of operation. A strike team is made up as an operational unit to simply incident command and control. A strike team consists of 5 fire appliances and a leading command car. The most common configuration is 4 Fire fighting appliances and 1 Bulk water carrier. Strike teams generally have a purpose for example a campaign strike team (with a full range of appliances) or an Impact strike team which consists of 5 fire trucks, mostly small and manoeuvrable (14's or 24's). Typically Strike teams are sourced from a group, and are named after their group. (e.g., A strike team from Swanport Group would be called "Swan-port strike team"). Strike teams however can be composite made up from appliances from a number of groups. Strike teams are often deployed to regional areas for several days deployment. Often a strike team will be in charge of a particular sector of a fire.

Along a similar line task forces are groups of appliances that are mobilised to combat a particular incident out of their usual area of operation. However task forces are more flexible in their makeup and appliances are usually specifically selected for a particular incident. Where practical the 1 to 5 ratio is maintained to maintain command. This 1 to 5 ratio refers to 1 leader with 5 subordinates. Task forces attend a wide range of incidents including flooding.

There are also regional strike teams. These strike teams are put together when there are high fire danger days coming up and the CFS does not want to stretch a groups resources. These regional strike teams usually have one or two trucks from a few groups in that region. They sometimes have two or more commanding cars, plus a SES vehicle for logistics.

Chain of Command

The CFS chain of command is set out in the following way, with the top being the most senior in rank:

  • Chief Officer (Red helmet with a white stripe)
  • Deputy Chief Officer (Red helmet with a white stripe)
  • Assistant Chief Officer (Red helmet with a white stripe)
  • Commander / Regional Commander (Red helmet with a blue stripe)
  • Regional Officer (Red helmet with a blue stripe)
  • Group Officer (Red helmet)
  • Deputy Group Officer (Red helmet)
  • Brigade Captain (Yellow helmet with a red stripe) It is the most senior rank in a brigade and he or she is responsible for the operational and administrative aspects of the brigade. The position is elected by members of the brigade. Some of this things that a captain will do is: undertaking responsibility for the proper management and maintenance of brigade property and equipment, ensuring members of the brigade are properly trained, take command of incidents and ensure that the chain of command within the brigade operates effectively, assisting with bushfire prevention and planning within the brigades response area, liaising with other captains in adjacent brigades and managing the operations of the brigade in accordance with any determination of the CFS board.
  • Brigade Lieutenant. (Yellow helmet) There must be at least two Lieutenants in a brigade and a maximum of four. They are elected to assist the captain in the performance of his or her functions, and take over in the absence of the captain.
  • Senior Fire Fighter. (White helmet with a red stripe) Seniors are not officers as such, but assist the Captain and Lieutenants with mainly operational management. They should be experienced personnel within the brigade, and they provide an opportunity for brigades to establish a line of middle management or succession planning. Some people see the position of a Senior as a build up to becoming a Lieutenant.
  • Fire Fighter. (White helmet) A fire-fighter is the lowest ranked operational fire personnel, but they are the most important, because they make up the numbers. These fire-fighters can be trained just as much as a more highly ranked person but they do not usually take a leadership role at an incident.
  • Cadet. (No helmet colour) The age in which you can become a cadet is 11, but some brigades do not let in cadets until they are 14. At the age of 16 you are able to choose to become a fire-fighter, or stay on until you are 18 as a cadet. Cadets are taught skills which will help them when they become fire-fighters.
  • Auxiliary brigade member. (no helmet) They do not go out on the fire truck. They help out with any of the other jobs that need doing, eg. fundraising, preparing food, operating the station radio etc.

All positions from Group Officer down (inclusive) are voluntary and are elected democratically by fire-fighters (with the exception of cadets).

Regional Officers and above are appointed by the state government.

Other positions that may be held within a brigade are:

  • Brigade Communications Officer (Responsible for ensuring all communication equipment is operational and utilised correctly and efficiently)
  • Brigade Training Officer (Coordinates training, including weekly training and ensuring volunteers are placed on appropriate specialist courses)
  • Brigade Logistics Support Officer (Provides logistics support at a local level, eg. food packs on appliances, and resource directories in the radio room)
  • Brigade OH&S Representative (Ensures OH&S requirements are met, and near miss / accident report forms are lodged appropriately)
  • Brigade Administration Officer (Does administration, including signing up of new members)

The CFS Logos

The Star Logo

The star in the CFS logo/ cap badge is a stylised version of the Star of the Order of the Garter. An award of the British sovereign. The star is used on cap badges of the British and Australian military and other organisations with a connection to the Crown (Government). The SAMFS uses a similar star on their badge.

Another more interesting interpretation of the cap star is that the badge originated from the Maltese cross, the emblem of the knights of Malta, and was used by the Knights of Saint John in Jerusalem, during the crusades. It is said that the cross of Saint John came to represent fire fighting, after soldiers who risked there lives to save others from burning oil, were given the cross of Saint John as a badge of honour. This seems to have come from US Fire departments who have adopted a very stylised cross quite unlike the Maltese cross worn by the Knights of Saint John.

Each point of the Star represents a virtue, valued in a fire fighter. these are (from top point, going clock-wise)

  • Tact
  • Loyalty
  • Dexterity
  • Observation
  • Sympathy
  • Gallantry
  • Explicitness, and
  • Perseverance

Although the corporate 'taxi' logo is now used in most applications, the star is still the Official insignia of the CFS.

The corporate Logo
The new corporate logo was introduced in 1999, in an effort to present the modern image of the CFS as a professional organisation. The logo should be used on fire appliances, fleet vehicles, helmets and official CFS publications. The logo was chosen as a result of a competition and is based on a design by a volunteer, with the red checker pattern representing the fire service, the yellow representing the colour of the CFS turn-out gear, and the map of south Australia representing the area served.

Dispatch

The CFS has a few ways of dispatching brigades to emergencies, however in almost all, pagers are used to alert volunteers to the incident. People wanting to report an incident should ring 000 and ask for 'fire'. Their call will be taken by trained operators at the SAMFS communications centre. Naturally, brigades can also be responded by notifying a brigade in person, or by ringing the local brigades phone (if it is manned), but using the 000 emergency number is recommended.

Call Receipt

In South Australia, people should ring the national emergency number (000, or 112 from a mobile phone) or ringing the emergency number for their local fire brigade (if in a rural area). Upon ringing 000, they will get an operator in the SAMFS Dispatch centre in Adelaide. MFS will then Respond the appropriate resources to the incident. If they ring the local fire brigades emergency number, they will be put through to the ALERTS system.

  • When a call is received into the ALERTS system, a conference call is set up, and the ALERTS system will call the brigade personnel registered to receive ALERTS calls (usually Captain and officers but can be anyone in the brigade or group level).
  • When the call is answered, a PIN is required to be entered to join the conference
  • they can talk to the caller, State HQ and the other ALERTS call-takers.
  • The ALERTS system will also ring the CFS State Operation Control Centre (SOCC) in Waymouth Street, Adelaide, so an ALERTS call will always be answered.
  • When volunteers or SOCC Staff have entered the conference call, they can gather all the information they need from the caller and respond the appropriate resources.

The ALERTS system has one advantage over the 000 system in that the people taking the call (local brigade volunteers) have local knowledge and can get the information required about exactly where the incident is, and where it might go. (Volunteers know the area well, and descriptions like "Past the big tree at Bob's old place" mean much more than they would to a 000 call centre operator). However if brigades provide sufficient input to the SACAD project this problem should be minimised.

Problems may be encountered when the 000 call centre (run by Telstra) is offline or overloaded as occurs a couple of times per year on average. When fully implemented the new turn out system will be called SACAD.

Paging
All active CFS volunteers are assigned with a pager. The pagers are specifically made for the Government Radio Network paging system and are Samsung model SFA-170 pagers. These pagers receive alpha-numeric pages and maildrops. Tones for info pages and maildrops can be changed, however the response/callout message will always come through on "Tone 7", a chirping tone. The pagers work at a frequency of 148.8125MHz. These pagers are not built for harsh treatment and can sometimes receive corrupted messages, depending on location.

Pagers are capable of receiving pages individually or messages sent to paging groups. (The Brigade, Group, Region etc). Any station can send out a page to any paging group.

MFS Response Paging

The SAMFS send response pages out in the following format: MFS Respond Type of incident Date / Time Location of incident Map Reference Further details Brigades responded.

For example: MFS: RESPOND RCR 16/06/06 07:38,SOUTH EASTERN FWY,CRAFERS, MAP 145 C 11,
DOWN TRACK JUST ABOVE TUNNELS,9019 8824*CFSRES:

The incident is a Road Crash Rescue on the South Eastern Freeway at Crafers. The Map Reference is a UBD (brand of map) reference. Brigades responded were Stirling (9019) and Aldgate (8824).

SOC Response Paging

CFS State Headquarters (SOC) Also respond brigades to incidents. Although they don't use the same rigid format as the MFS, they also follow a format of how they send the response messages: SHQ: *CFSRES: Station responded RESPOND incident, and location, further details Date

For Example: SHQ: *CFSRES: BURNSIDE RESPOND RCR S/E FREEWAY, ABOVE TUNNELS, DOWNTRACK, CRAFERS.... < 16/06/2006 07:41:23

Other Response messages can also be sent from Automatic systems such as those used to monitor fire alarms or station interfaces

Call Acknowledgement A brigade that receives a page for an incident, has to acknowledge receipt of the page with the sender (MFS or SOCC) within 4 minutes if MFS or 6 minutes if CFS SOCC. If nothing is heard from that brigade, the next appropriate resource will be responded, a process called "defaulting". In this way, the CFS can guarantee that an incident will be attended to even if no one is available to attend from the closest brigade.

Automatic Responses

The CFS has standard operating procedures as to what resources are responded automatically on receipt of a call. These procedures are the same regardless of season, available resources or even further information from the caller. (Appliances will not be stopped if the caller rings back to say the fire is out. If the caller rings back to say the incident is worse, naturally, extra resources will be responded).
Incident type Automatic Response
Vehicle fire, Bin fire, Rubbish fire, MVA spillage Single Appliance response (one brigade)
Private alarm (Monitored smoke alarm) 1st alarm, 2 fire appliances (2 brigades)
Motor Vehicle Accident (Unknown entrapments) 1 Fire appliance and Closest Rescue Resource (2 brigades)
Domestic fire (House fire), Grass fire, Smoke sighting (Out of Fire danger season) ''' 1st Alarm, 2 Appliances (2 brigades)
Hazmat incident 2 Hazmat brigades + local fire brigade
Commercial fire 2rd Alarm, up to 6 appliances (3 brigades)
Grass fire (in fire season) 3rd Alarm, 4 fire appliances, Bulk water carrier, Command car, and water bombers (2 brigades)
Road Crash Rescue with >1 person trapped 2nd Alarm rescue, 1 Rescue brigade per person trapped + 1 fire appliance (at least 2 brigades)

These are the resources responded in the initial page, many more can be called in if needed. The CFS has adopted a "Better safe than sorry" approach, and although it can be a waste of resources for false alarms, when the incident is real, the extra resources on hand mean the CFS can deal with the incident quickly and effectively.

Responsibility

In addition to special services such as flood damage, and weather damage (eg. trees over roads), the CFS responds to three main incident types.

Motor vehicle accident (MVA) spillages, and Road Crash Rescue (RCR)

The CFS provides fire cover and clean up at road accidents. When there are entrapment's, the CFS will provide fire cover, and when required will respond Rescue appliances with the appropriate tools for stabilising and extricating trapped casualties. They also perform other rescue duties, such as rope (vertical / high angle) rescue, confined space rescue, building collapse related rescue, industrial site rescue, water and ice related rescues/emergencies and animal rescues.

The Country Fire Service often performs these duties with the assistance of other agencies. Such as the Metropolitan Fire Service (SAMFS), State Emergency Service (SES), South Australian Police (SAPOL), the South Australian Ambulance Service (SAAS) and Water Operations (Vol. Coast Guard, SES,F MAS, life saving or Sea Rescue).

Fire fighting

Fire fighting is the main job of the CFS. They respond to any fires including country and urban. Fire fighters combat grass fires, bush fires, crop fires, scrub fires, haystack fires, and brush fence fires, house fires, chimney fires, car fires, rubbish bin fires etc. Most trucks carry breathing apparatus, and use foam as a fire fighting agent.

The CFS's speciality is the containment, control and extinguishing of Bush fires (Wildfires). This can be via offensive or defensive methods of attack. Also with the aid of Water Bombers (Crop duster type fixed wing aircraft and helicopters). While Fire-fighters will never put themselves into an overly dangerous situation, (the Dead Man Zone) they will attack the fire as quickly and as directly as possible. Fire fighting can be done in several ways.

  • As a direct attack,
    • A head attack (the front of the fire is attacked. Only suitable for small, or slow moving fires)
    • A flank attack. (The most common method. The fire is extinguished along its flanks, starting at the back, and working forward, until you have pinched the fire out).
  • As an indirect attack
    • Back Burning (Light a smaller fire in front of the main front, so that when the main front arrives, there is no fuel left to burn.)
    • Using mineral earth breaks (Using bulldozers, or rakehoes to clear fuel from the path of the fire)
    • Leaving a fire to burn itself out, while monitoring its perimeter.

Special service

The CFS is the combatant authority for HAZMAT (Hazardous materials) Incidents. However, not all brigades respond to these. As HAZMAT incidents require a lot of people, only about 1 in 10 brigades are HAZMAT Trained, and resources are drawn from all over the state. The CFS is the only authority in country South Australia that is equipped to deal with Hazardous material spillages. Urban fringe brigades also do "Enhanced Mutual Aid" with the SA Metropolitan Fire Service. This involves change of quarters to metropolitan stations and responding to incidents in the metropolitan area.

Appliances

The CFS has 5 types of appliances. Urban appliances, Rural appliances, Specialised appliances, Combinations of all three and water bombers.

Rural appliances

CFS Appliances are have a call sign which describes the appliance. The most common rural appliance is a 24 (Pronounced two-four), which means it carries 2000 litres of water and is a 4 wheel drive (4WD). Other common appliances are 34 (3000L, 4WD), 14 (1000L, 4WD), 12 (1000L, 2WD). These figures are the nominal water carrying capacity. Fire fighting appliances carry water, foam and other fire fighting related tools and equipment. They are designed for bush/scrub/grass fire fighting however can be utilised for a number of other duties. Bulk Water Carriers (BWC, previously called 'Tankers'), which carry large volumes of water, also respond to rural related incidents, however may be used as water sources for Structural Fires, car fires, HAZMAT incidents etc, where water sources are minimal. Equipment carried on rural appliances may include:

Below is a list of the different types of rural appliances

  • QAV
  • 14
  • 24
  • 24P
  • 24URP
  • 34
  • 34P
  • BWC(4-20)(previously known as a 'Tanker')

These rural appliances are extremely important for keeping south Australia protected from fires. Almost every town in South Australia would have at least one of these rural fire trucks. The reason that there are many different types of rural trucks, is because the terrain changes a lot in south Australia. A 14 appliance, only carries 1000 litres nominally (often 600L usable), but is extremely useful for getting into small tracks which larger appliances can not. Large 34s often have trouble in getting into smaller areas. 24s are the most common, because they are not too heavy and big, but carry a reasonable amount of water, which can last a good time before having to fill up. In most parts of South Australia outside major centres there is no water mains, so this is where Bulk Water Carriers come in handy. These BWCs, often at a rural fire, will be stationary at the edge of it, for smaller trucks to fill up from. when empty it is their job to go and find water in places including, rivers, dams, swimming pools and water tanks.

Urban appliances

Urban appliances are usually Pumpers', 24Pumpers' (24P), 34Pumpers' (34P) or 12 appliances. They have bigger pumps, and are more suitable for responding to urban incidents like house fires, car accidents etc. In addition to hoses and fire extinguishes, equipment carried on urban appliances may include:

Below is a list of Urban appliances:

  • 12
  • 24Pumper (24P)
  • 34Pumper (34P)
  • Urban / Rural Pumper
  • Heavy Urban Pumper

Specialised appliances

These are trucks which are designed for one purpose, like Rescue, or HAZMAT. Usually these are combined with another truck. (eg. A pumper will be a combined Pumper/HAZMAT truck, or Pumper/Rescue) There is one state-wide HAZMAT truck, which is based at Burnside CFS that responds to any HAZMAT incident in the state. It carries extra air cylinders for the Breathing Apparatus as well as gas tight suits, atmospheric monitoring equipment, and other specialised equipment.

According to the Basic Fire-fighting 1 (BFF1) manual, the CFS vehicles are such:

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Country Fire Service".

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