With summer fast approaching, we know it won't take long until a fire ban is put in place. It is part of summer life in New Zealand, as we watch our green hills become parched and brown.
The one thing we have a lot to be grateful for is our rural fire brigades, made up of local volunteers who give up their time to train and attend fires, accidents, and emergencies. One such service, which has served its community for more than 50 years, is the Maraekakaho volunteer fire brigade in Hawke's Bay. Sixteen volunteer firefighters, five of them women, cover from Bridge Pa to Raukawa, south to Tikokino and up to Kereru.
Their occupations are varied, and include farmers, agricultural contractors, grape growers, a home-kill butcher, vet nurse, two other nurses, as wellas an engineer and his wife, just to name a few. Everyone brings with them their own skill sets which complement each other. The hardest struggle is getting volunteers who live and work in the area during the day.
I asked Ian Quinn from the Marekakaho rural fire brigade what volunteers get out of doing their bit for their local brigade. "It gives you a real sense of satisfaction when you're able to help people out in their time of need," Quinn said. "The training and support that we get from each other and from Fire and Emergency is great - a lot of those skills and experience help even outside the time spent with the brigade or responding to incidents. "It's also a great way to connect with others in rural communities, which are often spread out."
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When it comes to emergency vehicles, we are not talking red fire trucks but a 4WD drive single cab, yellow rural fire truck. It can cover rugged terrain and carry a portable 5000-litre dam (similar to a backyard swimming pool) portable pump, hand tools, and 1800-litre water on board. This is one grunty machine! Summer brings mostly vegetation fires, and this sometimes includes tractors, trucks, and other farm machinery such as baling equipment, but not so many structure fires. They also deal with road crashes and their Fire and Emergency ute is used to attend medical callouts as well.
While attending crashes and medical emergencies is all part of the job, they also deal with flooding, give school talks on fire safety, use local market days to build awareness and are actively involved in the community. This gives a sense of reassurance to a community, especially when something happens those effects everyone.
I will always remember having to ring for an ambulance when I was living in the country, only to see the fire truck coming through the gate. They were local and had the shortest distance to travel, and it made me think how lucky rural communities are to have these volunteers.
One thing that must be kept in mind is some volunteers are able to be part of a rural fire team only because of the generosity of their employers.
Regular trainings come up with scenarios that enable them to work out how to deal with different challenges. The brigade's latest fundraiser has been for a defibrillator which is now housed on the wall at the Fire Service shed. Already 20 locals have attended a course on how to use it and as there was so much interest, they are planning to run another course in the near future. They have ordered five mannequins for training purposes that will involve the community. With summer on the way, remember to keep that grass short, avoid build-up of potential fuel for fires in the immediate vicinity of your house (leaves and other dead vegetation, firewood, and the like) and be aware of the risk of starting fires when using machinery (do those jobs in the cooler hours of the day).
