Cherry Gardens CFS
With the fire season coming to an end the Cherry Gardens CFS brigade has had a chance to recoup and recover after a busy and stressful season. With the days shortening and the temperature dropping our training shifts from bushfire related activities to the many other incident types we’re likely to get called out to over winter, such as road accidents and structure fires. A reminder to check the CFS website for this year’s fire danger season dates, and once the fire danger season does end please continue to exercise caution when burning off. The vegetation in our area remains dry for a considerable time even when the weather has cooled. This transition time of the year is when we get many calls to out of control burn offs. Please don’t let it be to your house!
Our most recent callout (at time of writing) was to a hay shed fire near Oakbank, where our Sturt Group Compressed Air Foam System (CAFS) appliance was called to assist. This system allows us to place a heavy blanket of foam on a fire and provides a far quicker rate of extinguishment than conventional foam or water delivery. While heavy machinery was used to pull apart the hay shed our crews were able to douse the structure with foam from the CAFS appliance, and within a matter of hours the fire was extinguished. This is a considerable improvement on conventional fire-fighting methods which could potentially have taken days to extinguish such a large hay shed fire. It’s fascinating to see how the march of technology is slowly changing the fire-fighting world.
We have also been called out recently to deal with a cow that had decided to see the world and was wandering along Hicks Hill Road, creating a substantial traffic hazard. Our brigade is fortunate to include members who are familiar with the handling of livestock and with their assistance we were able to usher the adventurous cow back into the safety of her pasture. All in a day’s work for your Cherry Gardens CFS!
Once again the brigade would like to thank the community for your continuing support to us, particularly over the events of the past few months. This has certainly been a trying fire season for many people and it has been encouraging to see our wonderful Cherry Gardens community pull together to help each other get through. We are all certainly very fortunate to live in this part of the world.
We train every Monday night for those who may be interested in what we do.
If you have not thought about this yet, then please stop and get your Bushfire Safety Plan prepared and clean up around your place. You can follow this link to do a 5-minute plan.