On Monday, firefighters from Armidale Fire and Rescue and Dumaresq Rural Fire Service teamed up for a training and familiarisation session.

Armidale Fire and Rescue station commander Steve McWhirter said the sessions were a necessary team-building exercise.

“We do a lot of work together and we’re starting to do much more,” he said.

“It’s not like Sydney where you have four other fire services in the area. We need to rely on each other for help because we’re the only two in the town.”

Around 14 members of the RFS attended and 10 from Fire and Rescue NSW.

The group focused on familiarising hose fittings in the two-hour session, as sometimes an agency can change its equipment and the two are no longer compatible.

“We learned a lot about each other’s capabilities,” Mr McWhirter said.

“Some of the training we did included relay pumping – this is used in circumstances where you have a fire a long way from the road and you’re nowhere near a fire hydrant, so you need to connect hoses to the nearest water source.”

Mr McWhirter said the two groups learned a lot about limitations and capabilities.

“At the end of the day it was about figuring out how best our teams can work together when we need to,” he said.

“The first house fire I ever had in Armidale was attended by the Rural Fire Service and so was the last. They’ve been a great help in both situations.”

Dumaresq Rural Fire Service superintendent Steve Mepham said his team learned an important lesson about radio communication.

“The guys didn’t actually realise that we had channels we can talk to each other through on radio, so it was really beneficial,” he said.

“Really, the key thing is that we have those working relationships. There were a few new faces that we hadn’t met before and it’s great to get to know each other on a first-name basis.

“We might have a barbecue next time – dependent on fire conditions of course.”