Vols on hols: The CFA’s plan to recruit volunteer Melburnian firefighters

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Victoria’s Country Fire Authority (CFA) will look to Melburnians as volunteers to fight fires and bolster membership numbers as climate change brings about worsening and more frequent disasters.

Volunteer numbers have fallen short of targets recently, and some country brigades rely on an ageing membership to respond to disasters, including fires and car accidents.

CFA chief officer Jason Heffernan.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

The emergency service is now undertaking a review of its operations and hopes to widen the pool of volunteers who can assist local brigades in fighting fires and provide other forms of support during peak summer periods.

CFA chief officer Jason Heffernan said cost-of-living pressures were forcing people to take on extra work and longer hours, which made it difficult for CFA brigades to attract more members.

“That doesn’t mean that people aren’t interested in volunteering, but their time might be a little more limited,” he said.

Heffernan said the CFA’s long-term operating model review was examining what changes and policies were required to allow Melburnians to serve local brigades as part of “flexible volunteering”.

The Black Summer fires devastated East Gippsland in 2020.Credit: Getty Images

“We’re having those conversations. We’ve got people working on that, and I’m hopeful that this time next year we’ll be far more advanced in being able to harness the capabilities of community members that might not live in that traditional CFA area,” he said.

Training for the CFA’s general firefighting course takes between three and six months and includes both theoretical and practical components. Some ongoing training is also required for operational volunteers, who are trained to turn out to fires.

The CFA’s 2022-23 annual report showed it had 52,000 volunteers across the service. But the most recent state budget papers revealed there were 32,400 operational volunteers, which was short of the target range of 38,500 to 39,500.

The CFA has almost 1400 brigades, and volunteers typically live near their local station. Heffernan said the fire service would still need country residents to join their local brigades, but he said the CFA was working to determine the best method to allow Melburnians to volunteer their time with country stations.

“The last thing I want to do is get a lot of people in inner-metropolitan Melbourne excited about being part of it and then fail my end by not having the appropriate structures, governance, policy and support mechanisms to allow them to do that.”

There is precedent here for the fire service in lifesaving. Almost half of Life Saving Victoria’s 57 clubs rely on members who live, on average, a 50-kilometre round trip from their club. Some clubs – including Waratah Beach, Venus Bay, Wye River, Kennett River, Lorne, Apollo Bay, Inverloch, Fairhaven and Woodside – have members that travel more than 100 kilometres.

Life Saving Victoria’s governance, club support and education general manager, Kate Simpson, said the service recognised the need to recruit visitors who spend weekends and holidays in beachside communities but live elsewhere.

“These people are a part of those communities and want to contribute alongside residents,” she said.

Life Saving Victoria relies on both locals and visitor lifeguards to patrol beaches. Credit: Justin McManus

At Mallacoota, in East Gippsland, the CFA is now trialling a new program called Vols on Hols in response to low volunteer numbers. The program allows CFA-trained volunteers to register with the Mallacoota brigade if they are holidaying at the coastal town over summer.

Local CFA captain Tracey Johnston said her brigade had just five operational volunteers who had completed the minimum training to turn out when the Black Summer bushfires ravaged the area in 2019-20. More than 120 houses were lost in Mallacoota.

Although the brigade has 18 members, Johnston said many of them are older volunteers who no longer turn out for fire-fighting duties.

“They are now travelling and enjoying being retired and have grandchildren that they love to go and spend time with,” she said.

Mallacoota CFA captain Tracey Johnston.Credit: Eddie Jim

Johnston said six people had registered for Vols on Hols so far, and there had been another 10 informal inquiries. One person had already returned home after spending 10 days with the brigade.

Johnston said there was no onus on volunteers who joined the program to join local crews during a fire.

“They are, after all, here having a break and spending time with their families,” she said. “But being volunteers, they signed up to the program to help out, so I imagine most would do their best to make it onto the tanker should the pager go.”

Interested members are asked to fill out an expression of interest form online, which then goes to the CFA’s district office to ensure applicants meet the minimum requirements to turn out to a fire.

The sky above Mallacoota blazed red amid the fire danger in January 2020.

Johnston said her brigade had put together an induction package covering the station, equipment and an overview of Mallacoota.

“We provide a place for them to hang their turn-out gear, so it isn’t hanging out with them at their campsite.”

Emergency Services Minister Jaclyn Symes said the difficulty attracting operational volunteers was more pronounced in Mallacoota than in other parts of the state.

“But I guess if you look at the trauma that they’ve gone through, it’s a big responsibility for people to consider putting themselves out to protect a community that has gone through something that was really scary,” she said.

Emergency Services Minister Jaclyn Symes. Credit: AAP

She said Mallacoota’s population swells from 1000 during the year to between 5000 and 10,000 in the summer holidays.

“Quite a few of those people are likely to have skills that are going to be potentially useful in a fire, and a lot of them may already be volunteers in the CFA.”

La Trobe University adjunct professor Jim McLennan said emergency services needed to expand their volunteer bases due to the increasing severity and frequency of disasters resulting from climate change.

“There’s no doubt global warming and associated disruptions in historical weather patterns mean we’re going to have periods of very dry, very hot weather punctuated with periods of heavy rain,” he said.

McLennan, who specialises in community and household bushfire safety, said it was worthwhile trialling any program that would help increase volunteer numbers.

“We need to test these things.”

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