Fighting Fires

Brigade Training

Members of the Brigade take part in a continuous training program that maintains their state of readiness to fight fires.

Regular weekly training on Sunday mornings focusses on a range of skills. These include;

  • Hose running
  • Pumping and draughting
  • Driver training
  • Use of Breathing Apparatus
  • Map reading and local area knowledge
  • Dry firefighting
  • Bushfire behaviour
  • House fires
  • Incident management
  • Use of special equipment
Sunday training commences at 0930 at both the North and South StationsChristmas Hills firefighters conducting a fuel reduction burn,
Skyline Road North.

Group Training

The Christmas Hills Fire Brigade, as part of its role as a member of the Lower Yarra Group of Fire Brigades takes part in a regular program of training organised at group level and which involves most brigades from Lower Yarra Group. The training frequently takes place at night and is organised by the Brigades in rotating order.

This training is of a high order and gives firefighters and officers a chance to work in new situations with people who are not always known to them.

The Christmas Hills brigade has organised a number of such evenings. The training takes the form of a number of incidents to which tankers and crews are dispatched. When they arrive at the incident the crews were required to deal with such situations as

Fighting Fires

There have been no major fires in the Christmas Hills Fire Brigade area for a number of years but members have been busy every fire season in other places. During the summer we are often involved in fires in other parts of Lower Yarra Group. In recent years Christmas Hills were part of strike teams sent from Lower Yarra to such places as Mount Martha and the Dandenong Ranges in January 1997, NSW in the 2001 and 2002, and the NE Victoria fires in 2003. In early 2006 brigade members were involved in the fires at Moondarra and Kinglake.
As part of our operation, this brigade is interested in promoting the idea of Minimum Impact Fire Suppression.

We are also exploring the idea of involving the local community in effective recovery of the environment after wildfire by means of a Recovery Action Team

The Fire Brigade in the Community | Christmas Hills Fire Brigade