Rural firefighters are volunteers - 2020-01-07

In rural Australia, most of the firefighters outside of the metropolitan areas are volunteers. Abbreviations like RFS (Rural Fire Service) and CFA (Country Fire Authority) refer to the organizations of volunteers. In serious situations, the national guard and other armed forces are brought in to support - and often even firefighters from places like the US, but the volunteers are the first line of defense for their families and their neighbors.

Volunteer firefighters are people like my friend Steve, who have full time jobs, but spend evenings and weekends training to fight bushfires in the off season (see https://g4ceinoz.blogspot.com/2013/03/hallam-comp-9-feb-13.html), so that they can spend days and weeks fighting fires during bushfire season. Particularly in a year like this one, this volunteer service can result it lost wages, PTSD, and in a few cases already, lost lives. Steve and his partner Ash are in London these days, but I suspect his dad and brothers are probably out helping tackle fires here. As the bushfire season has gotten longer over the past several years, it's starting to overlap with the end of fire season in the US, meaning that it's more difficult to get trained firefighters from there over here to help, which has been a stopgap in the past.

An Aussie friend posted this letter on her fb page from an RFS volunteer and I thought it was worth sharing. (Thanks KrisFS!)

"Letter to PM.. from a 70 yr old RFS volunteer.Please share this.
A letter to the minister by Peter Clark:
'Dear Prime Minister,
No doubt you have received many letters recently, many of them will be far more eloquent than mine, but here it is anyway to add to your list.
I am a 70 year old RFS volunteer. I am not the oldest member in our brigade. Our brigade has been constantly out fighting multiple fires since the ‘Bees Nest’ fire invaded our area on Sept 6. Our lives and the lives of all the people affected by the fires both here and in other parts of Australia have been put on hold since then. Some of our brigade members have lost thousands of dollars in income because most of us work for ourselves or are semi retired. We didn’t stop fighting the fires and go home after a couple of days. We just kept going because it’s our community, our friends our neighbours. Of course other strike teams were sent to help but ultimately the only thing that extinguished our fires was rain.

Let me assure you Prime Minister none of us WANT to be here. All of us would rather be somewhere else, doing something else. We’d rather be with our families and friends doing other activities. Even working so we can feed our families and pay bills. Perhaps even going on holidays or spending Christmas together. Normal, everyday activities, anything except fighting fires, dreading the sound of the pager going off calling us to another fire.

We don’t need you to be here in Australia instead of Hawaii. We don’t need you to wander round trying to look concerned, making glib comments comparing your trip to Hawaii with a plumber choosing between doing a job and his kids.
What we, the people of Australia NEED and WANT is this:-

•  You, our Prime Minister to announce an immediate CLIMATE EMERGENCY and take IMMEDIATE, POSITIVE, CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION to alleviate the effects of climate change. Which has, without a shadow of doubt together with the drought, made this fire season longer, hotter and more destructive. Just in case you haven’t heard, this season is unprecedented.
• STOP sucking up to media moguls and the fossil fuel industry. You have a science degree [with honours] yet you steadfastly refuse to accept the PROVEN science that multiple, destructive climate events are happening all over the world caused mostly by human action. Yet you appear to not give a toss.

Your peculiar brand of Christianity puzzles and concerns me greatly. I was raised by very religious parents who taught me the teachings of Christ. Compassion, empathy, humility, caring for others, love for fellow humans and all of God’s creatures. Yet, by your actions you seem to espouse the complete opposite of these noble ideals. You seem to value wealth, position and power. By your actions as Immigration Minister and PM you show no compassion, empathy, humility or Christian love for fellow humans. You show contempt for those less well off than yourself. You certainly appear to be totally unconcerned for the fauna and flora in our environment. I’m not standing in judgement of you, just telling you what it looks like from the outside. It is something that no amount of PR spin can overcome. Your true self shows through.

Your apparent belief, [that’s what it is, a belief, not backed up by scientific evidence] that you and other ‘believers’ will be saved after the 'end of the world’ and therefore you don’t have to do anything about climate change, shows you have an absolute conflict of interest in this matter and should exclude you from the office you hold. Your lack of action on climate change shows comprehensively you are NOT acting on behalf of the vast majority of Australians. You are certainly not acting on behalf of any young people as the recent announcement by the Young Liberals in support of action on climate change shows.

Therefore, if you are not prepared to take IMMEDIATE ACTION on climate change I respectfully request you stand down from your position of Prime Minister and leave parliament at the earliest time possible.
Your very disappointed and angry voter,
Peter Clark'"