THE FISH Creek and District Fire Brigade will be celebrating 80 years as a CFA unit this October.
Fish Creek has been heavily involved in fighting many fires over the years, locally, and throughout Victoria and interstate, with strike teams sent to the Black Saturday Fires and to Wilsons Prom’ more recently.
The brigade currently has 35 active firefighters, and five members with more than 50 years of volunteering service, two of who continue to turn out on the truck and help support their community in their time of need.
While the brigade was officially established as a CFA unit in 1944, like many other communities, there were coordinated volunteer efforts to fight fires long before this, of note is the 1939 Black Friday fires.
About 20 years ago the Fish Creek unit amalgamated with Sandy Point to become the Fish Creek and District Brigade.
They encompass the townships and communities of Fish Creek, Sandy Point, Waratah Bay and Buffalo, and their Road Rescue response area covers an area of approximately 170km, all the way down to the most Southern Point of Victoria within Wilsons Promontory National Park.
The brigade offers fire response but also has a specialist response in road crash rescue response and steep angle rope rescue and was one of the very first brigades in CFA to have road crash rescue.
“So, we turn out to motor vehicle accidents, and we’ve been doing that for quite some time. We have a special rescue vehicle for that,” said Secretary of the Brigade Mike O’Mara.
The Fish Creek crew have provided valued services to the community over these years and will come together to celebrate with their members and the community is invited on the day to visit the station and view the new renovations and its vehicles and equipment.
The station has been upgraded with new change and laundering rooms and new meeting rooms and in partnership with the Bendigo Bank, an electronic sign has been installed which will provide advice to the public on fire prevention and fire protection.
“The station basically now, is a lot more modern. We're in a period of austerity, and we were lucky to have this done for us. It took about three months,” said Mike.
A celebration will be held at noon on Sunday October 20 for CFA staff and volunteers with service awards to be presented.
After this is concluded, the station will be open to the members of the public between 3pm and 5pm and Mike welcomes everyone who is interested to come along.
“We're always interested in new members. People who want to come and join us. We're very keen to have volunteers, like every brigade it’s always a challenge. The more people we've got involved in the community, would help us, and it's a great organization to be part of,” said Mike.
