Budget Cut's - Station Closures

[JAFO]

With the end of financial year and the biggest changes in NSW fire coverage are about to happen. From the 1st July fire stations will close if there is Permanent & Part-time Staff shortage. The only stations exempt from this are Rescue, Aerial, HazMat and a couple North Sydney peninsula stations.

So your fire service levies that pay for fire coverage will no longer hold weight. Your local station may close without notice, so this means NO Guarantee your local station will be operational even if it's Trucks are home, this will create longer response times for other adjoining Fire Stations and their Fire Appliance Crews that are still open for calls.

Said it once before, now we have a Liberal Government, the Fire Service will go backwards on Service Delivery.

[Chrisco]

JAFO
So do you think Nowra will go back to retained station?

[JAFO]

JAFO
So do you think Nowra will go back to retained station?

Chrisco,

No I can't see Nowra going back to Retained only Coverage now they have 10/14 staffing in place, but can see Nowra Retained Stuff like many other centers with Retained/Permanent Station's or Town's with Two or more Stations going to Selective Calling, meaning the Retained in Nowra may end up not being paged for every Fire Call that Nowra Gets, but being excluded from minor calls that only needs the attendance of a single crew like Small Grass Fires, Rubbish Fires, Petrol on Roadways, Ambulance Assist Calls etc, and the Retained FF's only being Paged when the Retained are really needed like Property Calls - AFA's, House and Building Fires, Hazmat Calls and larger incidents were manpower is needed.

Area's that may see big changes in Response Protocols for Rertained FF's could include: Albury, Wagga, Nowra, Bathurst, Orange, Dubbo, Queanbeyan, Goulburn, Moree, Tamworth, Brocken Hill, Hunter, Central Coast, Illawarra, Sydney . . . anywhere where there are Permanent Staffed Station's that can cover calls where the Retained are not used.

Will be interesting to see what happens.

[Longreach]

OK so im guessing here that Permo's will go to 'on call' and try to use 'Retained' less?
cheers
Matt

[JAFO]

OK so im guessing here that Permo's will go to 'on call' and try to use 'Retained' less?
cheers
Matt

Matt,

It may come down to the point where none of the Permanent FF's at any of the jointly staffed Stations having any type of input into what calls the Retained FF's at their Stations get Paged to attend, it may simply come down to the type of "Response Protocol's" that Department chooses to upload into the CAD System.

When you look at the Retained FF's at my Station, they are paged every time our Rescue Pump is responded, but the Retained Response Protocol Set by the Zone Commander is as follows:
They are allowed to follow us (Permanent Pump Crew) onto:
* Grass/ Bush Alight in Station area
* Building Fires in Station & Neighbouring station's Area
* Hazmat Calls in Station Area
* MVA's Person's Trapped in Station
* Any Call for Our Tanker by any Appliance Crew

They are not permitted to follow Us (Permanent Pump Crew) onto:
* AFA's
* Rubbish Fires
* No-Caller on Line
* Animal Rescues
* Out of Area Rescue Calls
* Medical Access Calls
* Assist Ambulance Calls
* or Any Building Fire that is beyond our neighbouring station's area unless it is a 3rd Alarm or Higher

So in essence, they are paged every time our Rescue Pump is responded, attend the Station and then 70% of the time sit at the Station doing nothing waiting for the Rescue Pump to return, sign the Occurrence Book to get paid and leave the station till the next call . . . for about 70% of all our annual 1600 call rate each year.

Even I can see why the Department would be looking at Selective Retained Firefighter Calling across the whole state, can see some very big savings to be made if it was to be implemented in the correct way.

[Longreach]

Hi all,

Ok fair enough thanks for explaining it. I guess with how it is there will be changes to save a buck.

cheers
Matt

[Chrisco]

Does anyone know which stations will/likely close? Has anyone heard Marine 1 call up lately.

found this video on youtube: Telstra and FRNSW case study
http://youtu.be/H4I1z7KsReg

[Longreach]

Thankyou Richard well said. Im sick of hearing how hard done by the firies are. there are others of us who are worried on what might happen to us in the not too distant future.
For the record both my wife and i are both public servents, both in high profile agency's
yes i blame Labor for the mess were in, and yes im sick of hearing John Robertson being a hypocrite, he was part of the problem

[ivahri]

And it is funny Matt but I can predict the groups that will not be touched by the cuts. Senior officers of the rank Inspector & above (a group that have grown significantly in number since the current Commish took over), and non-uniformed Assistant Directors & Directors... these people are happy to lecture about how times are tough so long as their salary packages aren't touched! And don't start me on consultants...

[centralcoastscanman]

yeah well isn't that the way screw the people over that do the actual work and reward those who don't do the hard work.
Thats the way it was in health, and from talking to mates that are still in today thats the way it still is

Lets hope the current government can cut some spending from health exec's salary's to stop the job cuts in areas where they are not needed like the guys that you spoke of creating all that cool techno gear the nswfr guys use.