https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_Rural_Fire_Service - the
rural volunteers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_and_Rescue_New_South_Wales - the paid guys
https://www.radioreference.com/db/browse/stid/157 - radio channels
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1FKEsFfNwGQo8ST-nQNcwlqaDZw4T903Y&usp=sharing
- zerg90 map of fire station
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Sydney is the major city in the state of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia
primary fire service agencies in NSW are - Fire Rescue New South Wales
(FRNSW) + NSW Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) + NSW National Parks + NSW
Forestry Commission
on the map - the black and blue station markers are FRNSW - the red
markers are NSW RFS - the green areas are the national parks - there
are no State Forestry fire stations in the Sydney area
you can see that the black and blue markers mostly cover the City of
Sydney - but they also have stations far out in the suburbs
FRNSW basically has 1 city pumper per station - inner stations are
staffed 24/7 - outer stations are staffed by a combination of career
and paid on call staff
NSW RFS is staffed 95% by volunteers who have pagers - each RFS
station typically has 1 big brush tanker with a 1000 gallon tank - and
a smaller brush truck with a 200 gallon tank - some RFS units do have
SCBA but they are primarily a bush fire organization
You can see that the RFS and FRNSW fire stations are closely
intermixed in many suburban areas
All emergency calls for FRNSW and NWS RFS come in via the 000
telephone number and are dispatched by 2 primary fire dispatch centers
iirc - however - FRNSW uses mobiles on a UHF TRS and portables on UHF
- RFS uses UHF conventional; and both UHF and VHF portables
NSWFR has 7000 staff - RFS has 70,000 volunteers - these are
statewide numbers - NSW Natl Parks has 1,200 wildland firefighters -
NSW Forestry operates 50 brush tankers so maybe their staffing is
around 200 firefighters
note - NSW Natl Parks is not the same as in the USA - NSW Natl Parks
is more like a State Park Service in the USA - in fact -
ParksAustralia - which is the real Natl Park Service (from the USA
perspective) - only covers 6 national parks
note - there is no Australia Forest Service at the federal level -
except for maybe a couple of fire researchers and coordinators - you
wont find any federal forests on the google map - you will just find
'State Forests'
NSW State Forestry uses 70 Mhz - they have 2 forest fire dispatch centers
NSW Natl Parks have TGs on the State TRS (UHF TRS) - they are listed
as DSREC under FRNSW - not sure if that is really accurate
pretty sure that all fire aviation assets are shared - NSW Forestry
has 2 light helos on contract each year - FRNSW has 1 or 2 fire helos
- light and heavy airtankers are also used - unknown what NSW Natl
Parks has - there might be just 1 "dispatch desk" for all of the fire
aviation assets in the state
forest fire lookout towers are operated primarily by NSW Natl Parks -
iirc they staff 100 towers during the highest fire danger days
WaterNSW also has fire crews and lookouts and helos - they cover
several watershed areas in the outer suburbs - apparently mostly the
same areas as the National Parks - so its like an extra layer of fire
protection thrown into the mix
Apparently FRNSW runs all radio comms thru the 2 FireCom centers 24/7
- however the other agencies apparently have multi dispatch centers
that they staff on an as needed basis - NSW RFS usually has 1 of their
Fire Control Centers in each LGA/county
Bottom line - there are 2 primary players here - and they use entirely
different radio systems and entirely different staffing schemes - we
are not sure if they have full boundary drops or not - we saw 1 brush
fire get dispatched recently that got 2 or 3 RFS stations - but the
nearby FRNSW station apparently was not sent
NSW RFS is getting 5,000 new StarLink radios - not sure if they will
be a game changer or not
NSW Natl Parks has to allow RFS to take over any major bush fires -
this is by law apparently
most of the state is covered by heavy vegetation with several
mountainous areas - NWS Natl Parks has primary wildfire responsibility
for those 'deep insertion' areas / roadless areas - lots of prescribed
fire is used and some 'fire roads' have been carved into the mountains
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