Volunteer Fire Fighters Association

Cowabbie Street, Coolamon NSW (entry by kind donation).

This fun day is organised by the Coolamon Fire Museum.

Members of the public, fire engine owners and enthusiasts are all welcome to come along.

You won’t want to miss out on seeing fire engines, emergency service and educational displays, the Firefighters Fun Relay, classic cars, bikes, and market stalls.

On the topic of COVID vaccination mandates and the requirement for volunteers to disclose their vaccination status, the question that should be asked is:

Would the NSW RFS refuse service delivery to members of the public who are not vaccinated or who choose not to disclose their vaccination status?

The answer is obviously “No”

Therefore, why mandate the requirement for volunteers to disclose their vaccination status or even be vaccinated at all.

Cathy Noakes walked away from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS) in 2014, but she never quit firefighting.

After more than a decade of active service, three of them as captain of her brigade in Farringdon, Ms Noakes stepped down in frustration with the RFS bureaucracy.

“You weren’t allowed to just go and put out a fire,” she said. “You always had to wait for approval. So, as you waited, the fire just escalated.”

Instead, Ms Noakes joined the “mosquito army”, a network of community-based firefighting teams, that went on to play a vital role in firefighting efforts during the 2019-2020 bushfires around Braidwood in the NSW Southern Tablelands.

With their own firefighting gear and radios, local knowledge and experience, the “mozzies” worked in close partnership with their local brigades when RFS resources were stretched beyond their limit across the state.

You FLIR K1 may be due for an upgrade.

The K1 includes a USB-C port in the top compartment. The USB port allows the user to update the System firmware by first downloading an update file from the FLIR website and then connecting the K1 to a PC to transfer the file.

On June 7 2020 a media release was issued by President Mr. Holton with a recommendation that a RFS Volunteer Benevolent Fund be set up from the $51M raised by Celeste Barber. In the recent Commissioner’s Update Sep 21 one of the new priorities was to establish the Benevolent Fund to assist the volunteer firefighters and their families. It is good to see an initiative of the VFFA for RFS volunteer members being followed up.