On New Year's Eve 2019, My wife and I were getting ready to attend a party at a nearby town. Just as we were packing the esky, my phone rang. It was my employer who I was expecting to catch up with that night and find out what he and his family have been up to over the last couple of weeks since we commenced Christmas holidays. He told me that our presence was requested to assist with what would become the infamous 2020 Bushfires. My Boss, Duncan, operates a family-owned earthmoving business. I had worked for him for something like nine years operating scrapers, skid steers, wheel loaders, truck & dog tippers and crushing plants. But most of my time was operating bulldozers. The Dunn's Road fire was out of control, and the RFS and State Forests wanted our dozer to make and clear roads, build fire breaks, clear tree-lines, remove obstacles, etc. So, I packed a bag with a few day's change of clothes, a lunch box, and set off to Rosewood in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains. The journey to Rosewood took a couple of hours, the big D10R dozer on the float being hard and heavy work for the prime mover, as it dragged it's way into the hilly country east of Tarcutta. Before the first couple of hours of operation was up, it was dark. We were clearing an access road into a pine plantation, and a new access road around the boundary of the forestry. To my right, fire was approaching slowly, thanks to a cool night and just a slight breeze. The fire slowly made its way downhill on the forest floor, keeping out of the trees until it found blackberry, when it would flare up and erupt up into the canopy. Despite these scary moments, the fire was advancing very slowly against the cool breeze. To my left beyond the dozer’s lights was pitch black. The electricity and mobile phone towers had been taken out by the flames, and the lack of lights from buildings meant that there were no points of reference down into the valley. The ground dropped away sharply into a valley, and I was told that there was a farm on the other side, but I had no way of knowing for sure, and no way of knowing exactly how steep or deep the fall of land was. We pushed through and finally came out onto some very welcome open and relatively flat ground. It was about two am and my boss took over the operation of the dozer while I returned to the staging area for a snooze. The next morning after a few hours of sleep in the front seat of the Landcruiser, we were approached by a local farmer named Johnny. He is the owner of the property that we had skirted in the dozer. He shook my hand and told me that the work that we had done had saved his farm, the house, sheds and machinery. It was a nice start to several weeks of operations when we had no idea what was in store for us. Over the following weeks my work colleagues and I worked at Rosewood, Taradale, Wondalga, Gilmore, Tumut, Argalong, and assisted the heroic efforts of the Batlow RFS volunteers. (Personally, I was not assigned to Batlow until after the fire storm had passed through, but the mopping up operations were distressing enough). We slept in our trucks and utes, or on the lawn of the RFS sheds, or at the footy grounds. We ate from plastic bags filled with generous donations from a concerned public, and bought the occasional counter dinner. We showered occasionally thanks to the generosity of RFS brigades, local farmers and publicans. Upon returning to home once the rains achieved what millions of man-hours couldn’t and extinguished the fires, I resolved to re-join the RFS. In the days before the RFS was created (1997), during my teens and early 20’s, I volunteered with the local Bushfire Brigade. In those days the local brigades were self-funded, we built and serviced our own trucks, bought our equipment, built sheds or stored the equipment in privately owned sheds. Government support was minimal other than what we received from the local shire council. Like most young people in small towns, I moved away for work, and I never actually joined the RFS upon my return several years later. Over the years, however, I did assist from time to time, by driving a fire truck, and also providing assistance in my position as an earthmoving contractor. So in 2021, after assisting with another bushfire in the dozer, I joined the RFS. Things are very different to the old Bushfire Brigade days. Purpose-designed and brilliantly constructed response trucks, loaded with all of the equipment that we might need in almost any situation imaginable. The availability of training in all aspects of fire control are readily available via face-to-face training and online training modules. In the old days, a siren situated at the fire station would be the alert of the need to attend. Hopefully you were within earshot of the siren, which also brought everyone out to the front of their homes for a sticky-beak and guesses of where the fire actually was. These days, my phone alerts me of a call-out. A text message, and an alert generated by an app not only tells me the nature of the call-out, but also the location on a map. Since joining, I’ve completed several online training modules and attended one day-based training event. I’ve attended four fires, one Motor Vehicle Accident, and an “Assist Ambos” call. Then, last October (2021), I received an email from the RFS asking me to declare my Covid Vaccination status. Following the instructions, I logged onto the RFS volunteer portal and found the page. There are “check boxes” for One Dose, Two Doses, Booster… but nowhere to indicate No Doses. So, I left it. A month later, the same request came through on another email. I logged on, same result, so I left it. By April or May 2022, another email requesting the same came through, this time the language sounded more authoritarian, and demanded notification of my Covid vaccination status before 30th June. After that date, if I have not notified my status, my RFS membership would be changed and I will no longer be called upon to assist. Again I logged on, but again, I was unable to declare “unvaccinated” as my status. This was followed by a letter in the mail, marked “urgent”, again asking me to notify my vax status. So I rang the local (Wagga Wagga) Fire Control Centre, where I spoke to a polite and helpful person who told me that I was the first person to tell them that I was unable to nominate myself as “unvaxed”. She also told me that a lot of the letters were mailed out from the Wagga centre. She would not tell me how many, but she did say it was “a lot”. I have now been deemed unfit to attend training days, brigade maintenance days, RFS social engagements, meetings, and non-emergency call-outs. Of course, my first instinct is to throw my arms in the air, even display a middle finger, and walk away from the RFS. My resignation won’t hurt or worry the Brass of the RFS that have made this decision. It won’t hurt or worry the Local Fire Command controllers, I believe, because if it did, they would register protest at these mandates and defend their volunteer base which, in this part of the world at least, is struggling for numbers. The departure of any volunteer will however affect the local community and fellow brigade volunteers. At our AGM at the end of June, my brigade Captain, President, and all of the volunteer members unanimously supported me in my decision. We resolved to ignore the RFS directive and I will continue to attend all manner of call-outs. A pleasant outcome for sure. So I’m not really sure why this particular RFS policy has gotten under my skin and is irritating me so much. I don’t know why they care about my vaccination status. There’s ample evidence that the Covid vaccinations do not prevent the contraction of, or the spreading of, the Covid virus. They do say that the vax will prevent the severity of your illness. When I contracted covid last February or March, what I experienced was what I described as a very mild hangover. So who cares if an RFS volunteer is Covid vaccinated? I don’t think someone whose property is on fire would care. Someone wanting to be freed from a crashed automobile wouldn’t care. The elderly gentleman who took a tumble in his backyard and couldn’t get up didn’t care. My fellow volunteers don’t care. My employer and fellow employees don’t care. Why would it matter so much to the management of the NSW RFS?
All I can put it down to is narcissistic malevolent megalomania.
Edit: I received this message from a reader:
RFS hierarchy is totally over the top, in the absence of fires they appear to be searching for answers to problems that dont exist, their budget cannot be sustained going forward with the number of carreer uniformed people.
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