St Florian's Day 2021

Tuesday 4 May 2021 is St Florian's Day, a very special day for those in the firefighting family.

St Florian’s Day is named after the Patron Saint of firefighters, and is traditionally the day where we come together to recognise our volunteers and staff who have gone above and beyond – showing incredible acts of bravery in protecting the community, or delivering the highest level of commitment to the Service that is worthy of special recognition. In all cases, the recipients are nominated by their peers, which makes receiving an award on St Florian’s Day even more significant and special.

This year’s recipients demonstrated extreme acts of bravery in the face of horrific conditions experienced during the 2019/2020 Black Summer bush fires, and includes recipients for 2020 who were unable to receive their commendation due to Covid restrictions last year.

During a bush fire season like no other, our members fought tirelessly for months to save lives and property. Tragically, four NSW RFS members were killed in action during this terrible season and we have posthumously awarded Andrew O’Dwyer and Geoffrey Keaton from Horsely Park Brigade, Samuel McPaul from Morven Brigade and Colin Burns from Belowra Brigade with individual Commissioner’s Commendations for Bravery.

This year, given the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions we are unable to mark St Florian’s Day with one event to present all recipients with their awards. On 4 May 2021 the 16 individual award recipients and one brigade receiving the among highest of honours were presented their awards. All other commendations will be presented at regional ceremonies to be held in coming weeks.

Today, I would like to recognise those all of the recipients of awards and thank them for their ongoing commitment to the Service and the community.

Rob Rogers AFSM

Commissioner