The Probationary Fire-fighter
The following information is intended to help new members of the Country Fire Service to adjust to the life of a volunteer firefighter.
People who choose to become a volunteer firefighter should realise that demands of those who would successfully follow it as a calling are great. The CFS volunteer firefighter is effectively on call and stand ready 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to respond to any emergency in their local area or throughout the state.
And apart from the dangers associated with fighting fires and tending other emergency situations, members of the CFS are expected to manage their brigade's administration, keep their station and equipment maintained, and help community groups, such as local schools, by providing fire awareness and safety information.
There is also a heavy commitment to training. CFS Firefighters spend a good deal of their involvement with the CFS training to respond to emergencies.
The progress and promotion of any member of the CFS is dependent upon knowledge and ability therefore members of the service are encouraged to improve their capabilities by personal study and by attending training courses offered by the CFS. Good Firefighters, as a rule, make good Fire Officers.
In the Country Fire Service, a quasi-military routine is employed as a means of providing for effective and efficient operations. Officers of the Service assume responsibility for such operations, and orders given by them are to be obeyed without question. Discipline is absolutely necessary in order for the service to efficiently extinguish fires and function successfully.
The Probationary Fire-fighter, realising that orders or commands may be based upon conditions of which he is unaware must obey them without question to the best of his ability; he should have confidence in his Senior Officers.
Crews responding to an incident may be considered as teams whose effectiveness depends upon a high degree of team work and co-operation on the part of each member. As a member of this team, the Probationer can be most useful by quickly and competently performing the duties assigned to him. His job, as a member of the crew, is to constantly provide the maximum fire protection possible for the lives and the property of the people in his fire district.
As a general rule a Probationary Firefighter will sense immediately the good fellowship that is traditionally prevalent throughout the service and the high morale and comradeship of people doing a good job.
The Probationer can share and become a part of this fellowship in a surprisingly short time, provided he indicates a willingness to cooperate and to learn. With the right attitude, he will find that his fellow brigade members will accept them and make them feel that he belongs.
If, on the other hand he has a know-it-all and why-not-do- it-a-different-way attitude, the Probationary Firefighter will find it difficult to influence or win CFS friends. Firefighting is generally based on methods of proven maximum safety to personnel. The wise Probationary Firefighter says little, but asks and learns much.
A member of the CFS should never use his official position to secure advantages for himself. Such practices discredit the entire service. The honesty and trustworthiness of Firefighters must be unquestionable, because it is often necessary for them to enter homes and business establishments under emergency conditions with or without the knowledge of the owners. Complete faith in the integrity of service personnel by the public is imperative. It is the duty of every member of the service to take special precaution with valuables.
The Probationary Firefighter should quickly become familiar with the location of all items of equipment carried on appliances. At an incident it is imperative that no time is lost in searching through appliance lockers.
There is no substitute for experience in firefighting. There are few fields of endeavour in which experience is so necessary and so valuable. It will be apparent to the Probationer that experience becomes the prime mover and deciding factor in every split-second decision made at fires or other emergencies. In this sense, fires make good Firefighters.
A Firefighter obviously cannot wait until fires or other emergencies occur to secure the practical knowledge he should have or the experience he so vitally needs. He learns much at fires, but his success as a Firefighter will also depend upon how quickly and how well he assimilates the experience of other Firefighters by means of study and training.
It should be noted that although the new Firefighter will be given as much instruction as possible, his own desire and initiative to improve his knowledge and ability as a member of the Service will be his greatest strength. The effort that he makes outside of normal service training to increase his efficiency is indicative of his ambition to advance in the Service.
The Firefighter who is enterprising, ambitious, honest, loyal, proud of his job and Brigade and diligent in his efforts to master the vast store of firefighting knowledge that is available to him, will become a good Firefighter, a successful one, a capable leader and a credit to the Service. His future depends largely on the work he puts into the study and skills practice needed to become an effective member of a firefighting team.
The Probationary Firefighter has a great pursuit ahead of him, he follows in the footsteps of some great firefighters, all of whom started as probationary firemen and worked through the ranks.
In summary then, a firefighter in his probationary period needs to say little, listen a lot, ask plenty of questions of his peers and keep his eyes open and his mind enquiring. This will allow him to learn fast all the aspects of his chosen craft, one incidentally that has been declared as one of the most satisfying in existence.