Newham Rural Fire Brigade - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

style="font-size: larger;" | **Newham Rural Fire Brigade**

Established:	25 August 1969
Region:	2
Specialities:	Wildfire and low structure fire
Volunteers:	80+
Paid Staff:	None
Location:	Outer Metro Norwest Area Newham Newham -Places:* London Borough of Newham, England* Newham, Lincolnshire, England* Newham, Northumberland, England* Newham, Victoria, Australia-People:* Billy Newham , English cricketer* Edgar Newham, Australian rugby league footballer... , Victoria, Australia
Captain:	David Bachelor

The Newham Rural File Brigade is a volunteer firefighting service located in Newham, Victoria

Newham, Victoria

Newham is a small town located in the Shire of Macedon Ranges in Victoria, Australia. It is situated between the towns of Kyneton, Woodend and Lancefield...

at 1293 Rochford Road. It is often referred to as the Newham CFA. The brigade is part of the Mount Macedon Group in the Lodden-Mallee Region of the Country Fire Authority

Country Fire Authority

Country Fire Authority, or CFA, is the name of the fire service that provides firefighting and other emergency services to all of the country areas and regional townships within the state of Victoria, Australia, as well as large portions of the outer suburban areas and growth corridors of Melbourne...

. Newham is located in the Macedon Ranges, which is one of Victoria's popular holiday spots and has a risk of bushfire during the summer months.

Capabilities

The Newham Rural Fire Brigade is crewed exclusively by volunteers raised from a community of approximately 300 households. The brigade has approximately 40 active qualified firefighters, some of whom are self-contained breathing apparatus operators. The brigade is supported by a Ladies' Auxiliary.

The Brigade appliances

Country Fire Authority appliances

The Country Fire Authority appliances used throughout the state of Victoria by the CFA are provided through a mixture of State Government funds, money provided through insurance contributions as well as donations from both members of the public and external parties .Firefighting appliances utilised...

are a Hino Ranger

Hino Ranger

The Hino Ranger is a medium to heavy duty cab-over truck manufactured by Hino Motors.The Ranger is part of Hino's F-Series Truck with model code such as FC, FD, FE, FF, FG, FL, and FM. The further the alphabet means the higher payload. The 4WD models are FT and GT. The SG is Tractor Head to pull...

2000-litre 2.4D tanker

Water tender

A water tender, also known as a tanker in some regions, is a specialized firefighting apparatus designed for transporting water from a water source to a fire scene...

, a Hino 500 Series 2000-litre 2.4C tanker

Water tender

A water tender, also known as a tanker in some regions, is a specialized firefighting apparatus designed for transporting water from a water source to a fire scene...

and a Toyota Landcruiser 400-litre slip-on. The slip-on is used for areas which are inaccessible by the larger appliances and on small fire tracks.

Origins

In 1936 four Newham residents were among the volunteers who joined in the formation of the Woodend Bush Fire Brigade. These first volunteers were W. A. Crozier, W Campbell, A. B. Trewhalla and W. J. Muir.

On 19 March 1957, a public meeting elected officers to form a Newham branch of the Woodend Rural Fire Brigade. Funds were raised for the original appliance: a roll-on, roll-off Furphy

Furphy

A furphy, also commonly spelled furfie, is Australian slang for a rumour, or an erroneous or improbable story.The word is derived from water carts made by a company established by John Furphy: J. Furphy & Sons of Shepparton, Victoria. Many Furphy water carts were used to take water to Australian...

tank of 180 gallons, with a motor and pump, which was loaded from a stand on to local farmer's trucks. This unit was completed in 1957. Organisation later began to erect a fire station and construction was completed in 1960.

During 1961 the tank unit was converted into a trailer-type unit, build up by the local volunteers on a truck axle assembly. As the brigade at this time was a branch, it was ineligible for equipment from the Country Fire Authority

Country Fire Authority

.

In 1963 the Newham branch actively participated in the fund raising for Woodend's new VHF wireless sets, and the CFA promised a new motor and pump to replace the failing, public subscribed one on the trailer unit. After discussions with the CFA regarding further equipment for the Newham branch, and the realisation that as a branch Newham had the maximum equipment that could be allocated, the volunteers agreed in 1969 to investigate the possibility of the Newham branch being formed into a brigade .

In July 1969 at a meeting in Newham, it was resolved that the Newham Rural Fire Brigade become a separate entity under the auspices of the Country Fire Authority

Country Fire Authority

. The brigade was registered by the Country Fire Authority

Country Fire Authority

as a "B" class brigade on the 25 August 1969. Late in 1969 a secondhand truck was purchased for $500 from community donations and the CFA provided a 400-gallon tank, motor and pump to equip it as a fire truck. A VHF mobile transceiver was purchased for $500 giving the brigade an efficiently equipped unit.

Assignment area

The Newham Rural Fire Brigade core responsibilities are suppression of wildfire

Wildfire

A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...

in Hanging Rock Reserve

Hanging Rock, Victoria

Hanging Rock , in Central Victoria, Australia, is a distinctive geological formation, 718m above sea level on the plain between the two small townships of Newham and Hesket, approximately 70 km north-west of Melbourne and a few kilometres north of Mount Macedon, a former volcano...

, the Cobaw State Forest

Cobaw, Victoria

Cobaw is a locality in the Macedon Ranges Shire, in Victoria, situated on Dry Creek.The Cobaw area formerly had its own Post Office and State school, now closed.Cobaw Post Office opened on 1 December 1887 and closed in 1952....

and in surrounding grasslands; and low structure fire

Structure fire

A structure fire is a fire involving the structural components of various residential buildings ranging from single-family detached homes and townhouses to apartments and tower blocks, or various commercial buildings ranging from offices to shopping malls...

in an increasingly populated rural

Rural

Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...

community. Between 2004 and 2012, population growth in the Macedon Ranges Shire

Macedon Ranges Shire

The Shire of Macedon Ranges is a Local Government Area in Victoria, Australia, located in the central part of the state northwest of Melbourne, the state capital. The shire has an area of 1,747 square kilometres, and the 2006 census reported its population as 38,360...

is expected to be substantially higher (12%) than in regional Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

as a whole (7.5%) and in metropolitan Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

(9%). There is an expected change in the age structure of the Shire with people over 50 years of age becoming a substantially higher proportion of the population.

A responsibility of the Newham Rural Fire Brigade is fire suppression at Hanging Rock Reserve

Hanging Rock, Victoria

. This is a bushland

Bushland

Bushland is any area in Australia that is predominantly indigenous flora and fauna.Bushland is the term commonly used by conservation protection groups and other environmental groups as a blanket term for natural vegetation, which may cover any kind of habitat from open shrubby country with few...

venue of many events during summer that attracts a large number of visitors. These events include New Years Day Races, Australia Day

Australia Day

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia...

Races, Labor Day Races and the Harvest Picnic.

Incidents

The Newham Rural Fire Brigade had 41 turnouts in 2009. Over the years, the brigade has been involved in a number of major Bushfires in Victoria

Bushfires in Victoria

The state of Victoria in Australia has had a long history of catastrophic bushfires, the most recent of these, the Black Saturday bushfires claiming 173 lives...

, including:

The Ashbourne Fire, 13 January 1936
The Mount Macedon Ash Wednesday fires
Ash Wednesday fires
The Ash Wednesday bushfires, known in South Australia as Ash Wednesday II, were a series of bushfires that occurred in south-eastern Australia on 16 February 1983. Within twelve hours, more than 180 fires fanned by winds of up to 110 km per hour caused widespread destruction across the states...

in 1983
The defence of the towns of Falls Creek
Falls Creek, Victoria
Falls Creek is a ski-in, ski-out ski resort in north-eastern Victoria, Australia. It is located about 350 kilometres by road from Melbourne in the Alpine National Park, with the nearest town Mount Beauty, approximately 30 kilometres away. The resort lies between an altitude of 1,210 and 1,830...

, Harrietville and Ensay
Ensay, Victoria
Ensay is a small town located between Swifts Creek and Bruthen on the Great Alpine Road in East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. Ensay is north of the major town of Bairnsdale and east of the state capital Melbourne...

in the 2003 Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires
2003 Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires
The Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires, also known as the Great Divide Fire Complex, started with eighty seven fires that were started by lightning in the north east of Victoria on 8 January 2003...
The Victorian Alps Fire Complex in 2006-2007
Defending homes along Saunders Road and Sunday Creek Road in Kilmore East during the Black Saturday bushfires on 7 February 2009. Newham's Tanker was one of the first responding appliances

The Brigade has also supported NSW and SA firefighters as far afield as Tenterfield NSW and Kangaroo Island

Kangaroo Island

Kangaroo Island is Australia's third-largest island after Tasmania and Melville Island. It is southwest of Adelaide at the entrance of Gulf St Vincent. Its closest point to the mainland is off Cape Jervis, on the tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula in the state of South Australia. The island is long...

in SA.

External links

Newham web site
Bushfire History from the Victorian Government Department of Sustainability and Environment
State Library of Victoria's Bushfires in Victoria Research Guide Guide to locating books, government reports, websites, statistics, newspaper reports and images about the Ash Wednesday fires.
The Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre
Ash Wednesday in the Macedon Ranges

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Capabilities

Origins

Assignment area

Incidents

See also

External links