Our small eastern New England bushfire brigade was unusually thoughtful after meeting in the local hall at the weekend.
We’d been told that from July, we will all need “Basic Firefighter” certification just to be allowed aboard the fire truck. If we plan on operating a chainsaw—and who doesn’t, in a fire?—we’ll need a chainsaw operator’s certificate.
The captain will have to acquire enough certificates to paper a good-sized wall.
Until recently, the NSW Rural Fire Service seemed pretty relaxed about certification. If it wasn’t relaxed, then the Service didn’t pass its concerns onto volunteers.
That seems to have changed following the Victorian fires, and the subsequent hunt for backsides to kick. Evidently, the RFS has a case of “there but for the grace of God go us”, and is getting accountable.
From July, a veteran of our brigade, one of its founders in the late 1960s, will need to sit through three nights of theory and a weekend of hands-on practice to get his BF, so he’s qualified to sit in the CAT 7 fire truck.
The whole brigade—all landholders in high cold timbered country where cutting firewood is part of life—will have to get a chainsaw operator’s certificate.
(Rumour has it that there was a short-lived proposal from HQ to remove chainsaws from trucks unless all brigade members carried operator certificates–a small piece of madness that could have been very nasty for a truck on a steep track in gorge country, with fire to the fore and fallen timber to the rear.)
Something has subtly shifted. Instead of “our” brigade, it has begun to feel like “their” brigade.
Bureacracy is toxic to the volunteer spirit that has shaped bushfire brigades around Australia.
Faced with something bigger than our own self-interest, like a bushfire, most people show their best qualities. To voluntarily give your time to the community good, enduring hours of smoky boredom interlaced with moments of fiery fear, connects us to our neighbours and communities in the best possible way.
Being a volunteer marching to the drum of a bureacracy changes the equation. Some of the free choice goes out of the arrangement. You have volunteered to serve the interests of your community, but find yourself satisfying rules made up elsewhere.
After our weekend meeting, the mood was, “Should I bother?”
Here’s a prediction: RFS membership will suffer as a result of these new requirements. Maybe not in overall numbers–the RFS is something of a club in more closely-settled areas–but in loss of experience.
Around the table at the weekend, the feeling was that mandatory training will see landholders drift away from the RFS because of a disinclination to jump through hoops to certify what they already know.
Cranky at the thought of lost weekends, some said the new rules will only appeal to people who take on RFS training because they are unemployed, bored or have a uniform fetish.
There are plenty of hard-working and worthwhile volunteers within these categories, and the disgruntlement wasn't directed at them or the trainers who devote so much time to their task.
But it is true that uniforms and shiny red trucks have brought a new element to volunteer fire services everywhere, and that element is not always useful at a fire. A proportion of recruits—a growing proportion?—are looking for self-worth inside a uniform.
So, is the RFS administration at fault for making further demands on its volunteers? Yes and no.
In today’s society, there must always be someone to blame. The bumper sticker says that “Shit Happens”; but in these litigious times, if shit happens, someone gets their nose rubbed in it.
From the Emergency Services Minister down, people are sensibly making sure that it’s not their nose that gets the treatment—and so bushfire volunteers find themselves at the end of a long line of paperwork designed to protect the interests of those above them.
In the long run, though, any bushfire service's greatest asset is hordes of happy and willing volunteers.
As a volunteer, admittedly one who hasn't seen a fire for a while, I thought the NSW RFS has so far kept the balance roughly right.
We can take training courses if we choose to, and choose not to at our own peril. But we’re volunteers. That should be our choice.
Now the State's bushfire volunteers are being asked to give a bit more; not much more for most, but not necessarily to further their own interests either.
As a result, it will be a little harder to put together the numbers at some brigade meetings, and probably a lot harder to find someone to shoulder the load of a captain.
Friction is being applied to a community activity that once flourished of its own accord.
Australia’s volunteer bushfire services are an admirable achievement: the NSW RFS is the biggest fire-fighting organisation in the world.
Having invested so much on getting the equipment and command chains right, it would be a shame to now lose the interest of the volunteers that make it all possible.
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