Canobolas Zone Rural Fire Service volunteers head into the heat of battle in South Australia
Published Date: 07 Jan 2015
Summary
SIX Rural Fire Service (RFS) volunteers from Orange have flown to South Australia to help fight raging bushfires in the Adelaide Hills.
By TANYA MARSCHKE
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North West Orange firefighters Matt Staniforth, Ian Wotton, Mark Gray and Craig Peterson, as well as Springside firefighters Rod Oxley and Glen Griffith, left Orange yesterday to help at the fire front.
READY TO BOARD: Pilot Jesse Dargan boards Craig Petersen, Rodney Oxley, Ian Wotton, and Mark Gray. The rural firefighters are heading to South Australia to help battle blazes in the Adelaide Hills. Photo: JUDE KEOGH
RFS Canobolas Zone Operations coordinator Brett Bowden said the six Orange firefighters and four Cowra firefighters were among 30 members from Region West to take part in the second deployment.
Thirty-five volunteers from the region travelled to South Australia as part of the first deployment on Saturday.
Mr Bowden said this was the first interstate deployment for the Orange firefighters this year and they were expecting temperatures of 38 degrees and strong wind gusts.
"One of the great things about the way the response has been, the way people have stood up and said we will go," Mr Bowden said.
READY TO FLY: RFS firefighters Craig Petersen, Matt Staniforth, Mark Gray, Glen Griffith, Rodney Oxley and Ian Wotton prepare to go to South Australia to help with the firefighting effort. Photo: JUDE KEOGH
"A lot of people are on holidays at the moment and all our people are volunteers, if people have holidays already they are going on their holidays."
The firefighters will camp near the base camp and a second Orange strike team is being assembled.
"If the fire does take a run [today] or Thursday and breaks containment we may need to send a new team on Friday," Mr Bowden said.
"We've already got a replacement team organised for the current ones that are there today."
Springside RFS captain Rodney Oxley is the crew leader on the Canobolas Zone strike team and has previously helped in South Australia and most other states, excluding Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
"I've been doing it for 31 years now," Mr Oxley said.
"It's a normal routine thing for myself when there's a problem.
"Even though it's not in our own area we still help them."
