By Jeremy Sollars
With the region continuing to be placed on a high to extreme fire danger alert one local volunteer Rural Fire Brigade has added to its arsenal of firefighting capability.
The Wildash Rural Fire Brigade (RFB) took delivery last weekend of a new dual-axle trailer manufactured – and well and truly made to last – by local metal fabrication firm JR Welding Pty Ltd.
The brigade funded the materials for the trailer and JR Welding donated around 100 hours of labour to complete the new unit, which carries an 800-litre water tank and hose reel.
The trailer can be hooked up to any available 4WD vehicle and will further enable brigade members to access water quickly and get it to the fire-front where it’s needed, along with the brigade’s existing ‘slip-on’ tank and other units.
The Wildash RFB covers a lot of country – from Morgan Park just south of Warwick all the way to the Queensland-New South Wales border in the Cullendore district, east to the Condamine River and west to the Warwick-Stanthorpe rail line.
Their patch includes some challenging hill country in the Cherrabah area, making versatile vehicle access very handy to get in and out of the tricky spots.
Like all of the region’s volunteer RFB’s Wildash firefighters are on-call any tick of the clock, but as the Wildash firies like to say, “any day our wheels don’t turn is a good day”.
“We have a core group of members but we also have a lot of people who we don’t necessarily see at all of the meetings but are ready to respond whenever they’re needed,” brigade chairman Damian Deane told the Free Times.
“They’ll turn up when the pressure is on and we have people who will pitch in with their own dozers and graders when the need is there.
“This new trailer will help to make us even more mobile and these smaller units – like the slip-ons on the back of a ute – are often in the first line of attack.
“With our area being on the border we fight a lot of fires in New South Wales and we work with those crews on a regular basis.
“Water supply is obviously a huge issue – we’re just very grateful for the support we get both from QFES and from the council who will send tankers 0ut.”
• For the latest bushfire updates, safety advice and information on how to become a volunteer rural firefighter visit www.ruralfire.qld.gov.au and keep an eye on the Free Times on Facebook…
