A volunteer fire department (VFD) is a fire department of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. Volunteer and retained (on-call) firefighters are expected to be on call to respond to emergency calls for long periods of time, and are summoned to the fire station when their services are needed. They are also expected to attend other non-emergency duties as well.
The Country Fire Authority (CFA) is a volunteer fire service responsible for fire suppression, rescues, and response to other accidents and hazards across most of the state Victoria, Australia. CFA comprises over 1,200 brigades organised in 21 districts, and shares responsibility for fire services with Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV), which employs full-time paid firefighters in major urban areas; and Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV), which manages fire prevention and suppression on Victoria's public lands. CFA operations and equipment are partly funded by the Victorian Government through its Fire Services Levy, and supplemented by individual brigades' fundraising for vehicles and equipment.
The South Australian Country Fire Service is a volunteer based fire service in the Australian state of South Australia. The CFS has responsibility as the Control Agency for firefighting, rescues and hazardous materials and inland waterways in the country regions of South Australia. Its official mission is "To protect life, property and the environment from fire and other emergencies whilst protecting and supporting our personnel and continuously improving."
The New South Wales Rural Fire Service is a volunteer-based firefighting agency and statutory body of the Government of New South Wales.
Mount Riverview is a town off the Great Western Highway about 2 km NE of Blaxland in the Lower Blue Mountains, New South Wales, 70 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD, Australia. At the 2006 census, Mount Riverview had a population of 2,993 people.
The New Zealand Fire Service was New Zealand's main firefighting body from 1 April 1976 until 1 July 2017 – at which point it was dissolved and incorporated into the new Fire and Emergency New Zealand.
The Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB), also known as the Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board, was a fire service in Victoria, Australia. The MFB provided firefighting, rescue, medical and hazardous material incident response services to the metropolitan area of Melbourne. The MFB's headquarters were located at the Eastern Hill Fire Station in East Melbourne.
Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) previously known as NSW Fire Brigades (NSWFB), is a agency of the New South Wales Government, Australia. FRNSW is responsible for firefighting, rescue and HAZMAT services in the major cities, metropolitan areas and towns all across the state of New South Wales. Fire and Rescue NSW is the fourth largest urban fire service in the world, with over 6,800 firefighters serving at 335 fire stations throughout the state, supported by 465 administrative and trades staff and 5,700 community fire unit volunteers. FRNSW are the busiest fire service in Australia, attending over 124,000 incidents a year.
As firefighting has a rich history throughout the world, traditions in this profession vary widely from country to country.
Community Fire Units (CFUs) are volunteer teams of residents who are trained as preliminary responders to bushfires in the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales until the fire brigade arrives and in bushfire prevention. They are not to be confused with Volunteer Fire and Bushfire Brigades, which usually have vehicles and stations and are equipped for significant fire suppression duties.
Reduce the impact of bushfires on the community and to protect life and property from bushfires.
Firefighting is the act of extinguishing destructive fires. A firefighter fights these fires with the intent to prevent destruction of life, property and the environment. Firefighting is a highly technical profession, which requires years of training and education in order to become proficient. A fire can rapidly spread and endanger many lives; however, with modern firefighting techniques, catastrophe can usually be avoided. To help prevent fires from starting, a firefighter's duties include public education and conducting fire inspections. Because firefighters are often the first responders to victims in critical conditions, firefighters often also provide basic life support as emergency medical technicians or advanced life support as licensed paramedics. Firefighters make up one of the major emergency services, along with the emergency medical service, the police, and many others.
Northern Territory Fire and Rescue Service, or NTFRS, is the primary provider of fire and rescue services throughout the 1.35 million square km Northern Territory of Australia. It is made up of 27 fire stations, 16 being staffed by volunteer brigade units, 5 being staffed 24 hours a day by career fire fighters, and the remainder by a mix of career and auxiliary fire fighters.
A bushfire season occurred predominantly from June 2009 to May 2010. Increased attention has been given to this season as authorities and government attempt to preempt any future loss of life after the Black Saturday bushfires during the previous season, 2008–09. Long range weather observations predict very hot, dry and windy weather conditions during the summer months, leading to a high risk of bushfire occurrence.
During the summer of 2010–11, a relative lack of bushfires occurred along Eastern Australia due to a very strong La Niña effect, which instead contributed to severe flooding, in particular the 2010–11 Queensland floods and the 2011 Victorian floods. As a result of these weather patterns, most major fire events took place in Western Australia and South Australia. Some later significant fire activity occurred in Gippsland in eastern Victoria, an area which largely missed the rainfall that lead to the flooding in other parts of the state.
The ACT Rural Fire Service is the volunteer firefighting branch of the Australian Capital Territory Emergency Services Agency (ESA). It is responsible for the prevention, detection and extinguishment of all bushfires within the ACT, as well as assisting the other branches of ESA.
The 2015 Esperance bushfires were a series of catastrophic bushfires that burned from 15 to 26 November and affected the Goldfields-Esperance region in the Australian state of Western Australia. During the fires, the Shire of Esperance experienced two significant fires and a complex of fires; 128,000 hectares were burnt by the Cascades fire, 18,000 hectares were burnt by the Merivale fire, and 164,000 hectares were burnt by the Cape Arid complex of fires. On 17 November, during the major run of the Cascades fire, four civilian fatalities occurred in vehicles traveling on Griggs Road in Scaddan. As of 2020, the Cascades fire was equally the worst bushfire in Western Australia in terms of human fatalities along with the Willow Springs/Nannup fire of January 1958.
Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) is a fire and rescue service in the state of Victoria, Australia, that provides firefighting, rescue, HAZMAT and Emergency Medical Response services in areas of metropolitan Melbourne and major regional centres throughout Victoria.
The 2021 Wooroloo bushfire was a fast moving bushfire that started on 1 February in Wooroloo, 45 kilometres (28 mi) north-east of the Perth central business district, in the Shire of Mundaring, Western Australia. By 2 February, the bushfire emergency had spread to Shires of Chittering and Northam, and the City of Swan. It had destroyed at least 86 houses and 2 fire trucks. By 6 February, the bushfire had travelled 26 km (16 mi) from its source. The fire coincided with a five day lockdown of the Perth metropolitan region that started at 6pm on 31 January, due to a case of COVID-19 outside of hotel quarantine. In July 2021, WA Police charged a man with a breach of duty and carrying out an activity that could cause a fire, alleging that he used an angle grinder that caused sparks.
The 2016 Waroona-Yarloop bushfire started in the east in the forests of the Darling Scarp before reaching the Swan Coastal Plain and continued westwards until it reached the Indian Ocean. It started as a lightning strike that caused two fires in the Lane Poole Reserve state forest near Dwellingup, Western Australia on 5 January 2016 and then burnt close to Waroona and then through the historical town of Yarloop, destroying it, before continuing southwards towards the outskirts of the town of Harvey and westwards to Preston Beach. Around 70,000 ha of land was burnt, two people died and at least 166 buildings were destroyed in Yarloop alone with only ninety buildings surviving. In total 181 buildings and structures were lost with the total cost of fighting the fire and the cost of the damage and the loss resulting estimated at $155 million.
The 2021 Beechina bushfire was a bushfire that began on 26 December 2021 in Beechina, 46 kilometres east-north-east of the Perth central business district, in the Shire of Mundaring, Western Australia. The bushfire began less than five kilometres from the 2021 Wooroloo bushfire, and coincided with a COVID-19 outbreak and associated public health measures in the Perth metropolitan region. One house was destroyed as a result of the fire, along with six outbuildings and a number of vehicles.
