Talk:South Australian Country Fire Service

Suggested sections to add to CFS

• Communications (Explain GRN, VHF, Call signs and resource tracking in region 1)
• State Training Centre - explain it, describe it
• Equipment - introduce and explain some of the CFS used equipment.
• Road crash - techniques, objectives, equipment etc.
• Protective clothing - Different levels of protective clothing (proban, Nomex, PBI gold, Structural gloves, rescue gloves, wildfire gloves etc)

CFS History - EFS, volunteers ethic, where the CFS has come from, maybe where it's going, I think that someone should create a new wikipedia page, on the EFS, as this page is getting quite long

See: Emergency Fire Service

• List of important events for the CFS – Ash Wednesdays, Task forces, flooding, even bad RCR's
• SFEC's
• it would be good to add to the chain of command, for example in regional positions, like regional, training, comms etc.

Suggested sections to improve in CFS

This section has been changed as you suggested. The point of giving all the possibilities was to show that as a community organisation, the CFS can be responded any way you like, however for public safety it has been changed...

cheers that reads better. While some members would know what to do if someone contacted them many wouldn't have a clue. I'm not a fan of state moving to 000 only and like the current set up where even inner urban groups have their own emergency numbers that divert to MFS for usual day to day stuff.

The difficulty with the CFS is that there is such a range of differences across the service - what is done in urban brigades isn't even considered in in some rural ones... Dispatch by radio is common in country areas where most volunteers are farmers contacted by CB radio and able to alert the CFS of a fire from their tractors out in the field. Of course this would never happen in urban brigades where all dispatch is done by 000

Yes this is very true. But its all about reliability. What is going to work all the time every time. Trying to phone a volunteer at home may work in many cases it will not. You may get someone on the CB you may not. There may be someone at the station you may not. That said 000 doesn’t work 100% particularly over on the west coast where they seem to keep on cutting the fibre optic link. So yes what’s known as "contingency" should be know but shouldn’t be pushed as the first line of contact.

• Training (Explain what each course covers, maybe make new pages to do with this training!)
• Chain of Command (Explain each position and what they do, how they are elected, how often etc)
• Groups and regions - in more detail
• Fleet – explain the different appliances in more detail, maybe even down to the difference between older Pumpers and type 2's etc or why the CFS is moving towards 34's
• Response types. Explain what the CFS response to in more detail, perhaps even explaining all AIRS codes. At least covering the basics, with stop call and EMA.
• Bombers, please expand, explain both advantages and disadvantages, what they are used for etc.
• get rid of the old trucks, like the stirling tanker and heysen 14. It would be good to show a few 34's because they are becoming the main type of trucks.

OK, but leave at least one picture with the old striping, to demonstrate what ti looks like... (I think it'll be a while before all appliances are red/yellow checkered striped)

Suggestions that have been taken up, and completed

• Dispatch (Explain paging system, ALERTS, response types and standard responses, rostering system, Strike teams) Mazzone 06:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• Strike teams have been edited to make sense, and not be confused with taskforces.

• politics: please add more, and edit what has been written, there are many other problems, and the problems there would be good to expand on

Star of the Order of the Garter/ CFS Cap Badge

The badge depicted here is not one based on the US style 'Maltese' cross fire badges. In fact you will find the badge represents an historical link to the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Brigade badge. This was heavily influenced by the cap stars of the British (and Australian) military. The star is a stylised version of the Star of the order of the Garter. An award of the British sovereign. I doubt very much that the founders of the CFS/EFS would have viewed the American fire department badges. It is more than likely they adopted the virtues espoused for the points of the cross in an effort to add a degree of virtue to the badge. Ozdaren 16:48, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Politics

The following section was removed by 202.6.138.33. Please give reasons for removing sections before doing so, as this is considered Wiki Vandalism. Mazzone 14:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Politics

Due to the CFS mainly being run by volunteers, there are many problems with what people want and are capable of doing. Some of these problems are shown below

• Volunteers choosing which calls they go to.
• Volunteers wanting to do a job, thus becoming arsonists themselves
• Because it is all voluntary the chain of command is not often taken seriously
• Funding is often argued over, from brigade, to group and region.
• Jealously between brigades and groups, as some have better equipment and vehicles, also some stations themselves are much richer then others, even if they are a small brigade.
• Competition between brigades, most commonly with callout times. If one station in a group has a bad callout time, other brigades will comment on it.
• Internal problems, due CFS volunteers all having different jobs and lifestyles there are often clashes in personalities within brigades. This sometimes affects certain decisions.
• To much paperwork, for volunteers

Merge with Emergency Fire Service

The EFS was put in a separate article because the current CFS one is too big (gives a warning when you edit it). To ensure that the article is still of high quality, (and not too long) they should remain separate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.167.134.103 (talk • contribs) 6 August 2006

Yes that it is good the way it is, as the CFS is a very long page and is a different fire service to the EFS, even though the CFS came out of the EFS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Emmanuellives (talk • contribs) 8 August 2006

I also admit that I decided to propose the merge looking at that article before I looked at a recent version of this article. At the moment, Emergency Fire Service is quite short. Is there a better way of managing the length of Country Fire Service? For example removing some excessive detail, or by creating other subordinate articles? Examples of possibly excessive detail might be

• the star has two conflicting origins
• reduce the detail in "Paging"
• the "Training" section seems excessively detailed. University articles don't list every degree course offered.

Examples of other ways of splitting the article might be

• Separate Lists of Country Fire Service groups and brigades (like splitting the list of destinations out of airline articles) - and complete the list for all regions.
• Create Country Fire Service appliances or Country Fire Service equipment (including appliances) and summarise it in the appliances section here.

I'd prefer to just make suggestions, and leave the major edits to the people who have put most of the work into this article, and appear to have more recent CFS experience than I have. If people want me to make a particular major edit after consensus, please let me know. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:33, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

• after talking to a few people who have added a lot to this page i have made Lists of Country Fire Service groups and brigades, I think it would be good to make another page on CFS appliances, and on this page leave the writing about rural, and urban, but the new page have whats in them, and the specific types, i.e. 22,24,24p,34 etc. --User: Emmanuellives

Merged the content of EFS into the hx section of this page while trying to shorten the EFS section down quite a bit. EFS' talk page agreed merging and I didn't realize there was a consensus against it here, so just revert it if it doesn't work for you. If you do revert, please also revert the EFS page as it is a redirect currently. Tejanse (talk) 14:19, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Origin of the Star Logo

Thanks for taking the lead. I could see people had made a lot of work here, and I didn't want to stomp in and "destroy it". Do you know which origin is correct for the star logo? Two different origins with no reference for either of them is not good. --Scott Davis ^Talk 15:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I am 100% sure the star logo does not come directly, from the maltese cross, i think it should therefore be removed, as i have talked to a few people in the CFS about it, and it seems to have come from the Order of the Garter. I will try and find some papers on this through the CFS, and then we will have a reference, also i think i am going to start a page on different applyances, but keep this page the same for a while, untill it is compleated. --User: Emmanuellives

The Official SACFS Basic fire fighting (BFF1) manual clearly states that "...It originates from the Maltese cross, the emblem of the knights of Malta..." while this may be untrue, it is obviously the stance that the CFS has taken, so I think we should stick with it. While this article should be telling the CFS as it is rather than what it should be, if the organisation believes that the star logo comes from the Maltse cross, and have opted to teach all new recruits that this is the case, we shouldn't argue. Mazzone 09:01, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

wow i had a look at that, and yes you are right, i had a look through the CFS history books and found something simular, but i believe that the Maltse cross turned into the Order of Gater and then onto the CFS star logo, but it would be best to go by what the book says, which is the Maltse cross.

i have also moved some of the pictures and writing, mainly lists to Country Fire Service appliances Manuel 10:25, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

• I think it is time to make this page as pro as possible, hence, take out the parts on traing, (could possibly make another page), it is not really that important to the public, and the information is noting like what you would find in an encyclopedia. also I have noticed a edit, changing Bulk Water Carrier to Tanker. the offical name is now Bulk water carrier, so it should remain as that, not just for that reason, but also for public understanding.

Manuel 11:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi I think the connection to the Malteses Cross is a mistake by the CFS manuel. The only reference to the MC are recent in origins and reflect the mistaken belief that the crosses are related. Certainly the Maltese Cross has a similar set of attributes to those of the US fire department's 'Maltese Cross', however there is certainly no historical connection here in Australia. This is a totally modern adaptation of a US usage. I know you are trying to use information provided by the CFS but they are clearly wrong. The original comments I provided are correct and should still stand. Have a look at the link to the MC. I think this will help with the explanation. Ozdaren 09:57, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Another example is the London Fire Brigade. Ozdaren 10:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Dispatch

• I think this should be removed, and put in a new page Country Fire Service Dispatch, because it is not of great intrest, to somone wanting to know directly about the CFS, If this was in a encyclopedia, that would not be in the main page on the CFS, but it can be explained somewhere else, also i think that the Training part could possibly be created into a new page called Country Fire Service training, this way people could add what each cource involves.

Manuel 18:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It should be Country Fire Service dispatch (little 'd') under the general naming conventions. I think this is a good idea. For this article, it's useful to mention 000 and interesting that there are two distinct headquarters/call centres that can task CFS units, but the detailed content of a pager message is not really needed. It may be interesting that the old style callout of an air-raid-style siren has been completely phased out in favour of the pager system. Is "respond" really a verb for an action performed by the headquarters (as in "Brigades can also be responded ...")? Thanks. --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok i will make a new page on that some time soon, and yes "respond" is a verb, for an action. Could I have some opinions on the "training" section of this page, because i think it is a bit out of place for a main page.--Manuel 08:14 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but is "respond" a verb that the headquarters does to a brigade ("The headquarters will respond a brigade to the fire") or something a brigade does ("The brigade responds to a command from headquarters to attend an accident on the freeway"). The other way of asking this would be to ask if a pager message beginning "RESPOND..." is the headquarters responding a brigade, or the headquarters commanding a brigade to respond. If it really is the former in CFS parlance, this is worth explaining as it is not the normal English use of the word. In my example, "command" might be phrased as "request" or "call". --Scott Davis ^Talk 15:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe the way in the context it is both, if a brigade responds, SHQ or MFS comm's or another brigade have responded us, therefore, when we respond, it is because we have been responded by SHQ or MFS comm's. --Pixie 23:52 01/01/2007 (GM+10:30)

History

I am going to add some history to this page, and the Emergency Fire service page because it really needs some. I would like to get myself some historical records of the CFS, as the only one i have is the BFF1 learners guide. if anyone can help please do so...manny 23:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)