<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/05/rfs-firefighters-volunteer-numbers-fire-season>
"Volunteer firefighters across Queensland are struggling to meet the demands of
an intensifying fire season, with some brigades in desperate need of extra
assistance.
The volunteer firefighter Gary Patzwald, who has fought fires for 53 years,
said finding volunteers who aren’t solely “weekend warriors” was becoming
increasingly difficult.
“We are constantly struggling to get crews together [to fight fires],” said
Patzwald, who is the Darling Downs representative and vice-president for the
state’s fire brigade association.
“It’s not only our local brigade, it’s right across the state. There’s a lot of
people in brigades that can only really respond on weekends … Who carries the
workload from Monday to Friday?”
The warnings come as Australia recorded its driest September since records
began in 1900 and the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the country was in
for a challenging summer while visiting firegrounds on the New South Wales
south coast.
In the Warwick district within the Darling Downs region, four of the 14
brigades are in “desperate need of additional volunteers”, according to a local
firefighter.
Jim Besgrove, a first officer from a brigade west of Townsville, attributes the
“unprecedented” low number of volunteers to poor economic conditions and a
waning culture of volunteerism.
“We’ve been run off our feet for the last few months,” Besgrove said, whose
brigade has relied on the help of crews from farther north to battle blazes in
the area.
“We are an ageing workforce … We’re losing all that experience and we don’t
have significant numbers of young people coming on to take on those roles,” he
said.
After a peak of 76,319 volunteers in NSW’s Rural Fire service in 2020, numbers
have dropped to their lowest levels since 2012 at 70,838, with similar
downturns reported across the country."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
