After 13 years as a retained fire fighter in Guyra, and fresh from the 14-week training course he successfully completed on Friday at the Fire and Rescue NSW State Training College at Alexandria in Sydney, Monday was Adam Brennan’s first day on the job at the Armidale Fire Station.
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He was keenly looking forward to serving the community by “getting in and do a bit”.
“The training side of it was pretty full on. I had a few skills and coming from a small station, but Sydney was a bit different for a country boy,” Adam admitted.
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“Armidale is a good place and it’s a good crew here, more like a family situation, what with the things that we go through together.”
Adam has three years in Armidale, which will include more training and working at getting through the ranks to become fully qualified towards the end of his time.
Armidale Station Commander Steve McWhirter said he was a welcome addition to the crew.
“We’re trying to ease him into it a little bit,” Steve said.
“He’ll probably reach us a few things, coming straight from the training college because the training is very current, so there’s a little few things that we haven’t heard about yet that we’ll hear about from Adam.”
Steve said retained fire fighters were needed everywhere in NSW.
“I suppose it’s because of the nature of the job,” he said.
“Fire & Rescue NSW doesn’t put huge demands upon its firefighters and it’s not difficult to get into, you need to be fit and healthy and committed to the job.”
He said while not wanting to appear to be an alarmist, he believed Armidale’s residents could help the brigade greatly by keeping ahead of some basic maintenance issues.
“We’ve actually had a few call-outs to houses in the last couple of weeks, and the strongest message to come from those was ‘please maintain your flues and chimneys’,” Steve said.