Messages to CFA members

and play an important role in shaping a positive organisational culture that is foundational to attracting new generations of people who want to be part of what we do.

We’re currently at the mid point in our CFA Strategy and Outcomes Framework 2020- 30 which was developed to provide clear commitments from CFA to build and maintain a sustainable and effective volunteer-based, community-centred emergency service. We regularly measure our progress against the four strategic goals to ensure we’re on track with initiatives and can quickly adapt when required.

Ultimately, we remain committed to supporting our members the best we can to ensure the voluntary contributions made feel valued.

CFA remains a highly-trusted organisation because of the excellent efforts and work of those members who came before us, and the commitment and dedication of members today.

We look forward to being part of shaping the future of CFA and will enjoy taking the time to reflect on how far we’ve come during our 80th anniversary.

Board Chair Jo Plummer, Chief Executive Officer Greg Leach AFSM and Chief Officer Jason Heffernan

Our 80-year journey as CFA has not been without its controversies and challenges, which we have used to guide lessons learned and improvements that will ultimately help us towards becoming a safe, welcoming and inclusive organisation.

The External Review of Culture and Issues Management, conducted in 2022, spoke to past and present members, as well as stakeholders, about their experiences and reflections to develop recommendations that provide a roadmap for how we can address legacy and current issues to continue to transform CFA.

While there is still much to be achieved, there is a strong commitment from our leadership and members to drive positive change now and into the future.

Clockwise from above left: Sean Blake and Trent Dempster rescuing a calf; Leigh McDonald / photo Robert Bury; 2024 Victoria Point Grampians / photo Trevor Vienet; April Himmelreich and Captain Koala; Ahmad and Ammar Jahfar

FIRE SERVICES REFORM

Multiple reviews of Victorian fire services over the decades identified the need for change to respond to significant population growth across Melbourne and in regional centres.

Areas of the state that were rural settlements when CFA was formed had become high density communities, often containing substantial industrial and commercial properties.

The reform of Victorian fire services came into effect on 1 July 2020, with the enactment of legislation restoring CFA as a community-based, volunteer firefighter organisation and creating Fire Rescue Victoria which brought together career firefighters from CFA and the former MFB.

More than 30 CFA volunteer brigades and stations were co-located with FRV, sharing facilities and working collaboratively to serve and support their communities.

The changes have given Victoria’s volunteer brigades more autonomy and many of the shared stations appointed their first volunteer captain in their brigade’s history.

CFA remains a highly respected, community based volunteer fire service, with more than 50,000 volunteers who respond to a variety of emergencies including bushfire, house fires, floods, storms, hazardous materials and car accidents, as well as technical emergencies including mine and high angle rescue.

They are supported by a strong and dedicated workforce of more than 1,000 – many of whom are, themselves, volunteers. They perform a variety of roles including research, strategic planning, community safety and training.

In the post-reform environment our senior operational leaders other than the Chief Officer and Deputy Chiefs, are FRV secondees who work proudly within CFA, leading operational coordination and providing specialist skills and leadership in regions, districts and at state level.

Regardless of the uniform we wear, our background or what role we play, what binds CFA people is a shared commitment to protecting lives and property.

A MODERN CFA

Despite being unchanging in its values of protecting lives and property, the CFA of 2025 looks substantially different from the CFA established 80 years ago.

Those early firefighters that dragged hose reels by hand and manually pumped water would barely imagine the technology adopted all these years later.

Constant research has changed the face of CFA and continues to improve how we do things, from how we map and predict fire patterns with the Phoenix Rapid Fire simulation technology to training members with virtual reality.

Virtual reality has quickly become an incredible training tool for CFA. With equipment available to travel around the state, members can access training scenarios such as kitchen fires, car fires, grassfires, and aircraft fires that are impossible to accurately recreate in real life for training purposes.

The world-first aviation simulator was also an important addition to CFA’s technological tool kit in 2024. It has state-of-the-art mixed reality goggles with a 280-degree view of the surrounding landscape that provides real-world training and skill testing in a safe, controlled environment.

CFA’S FLEET

The early days of fighting fires with beaters, buckets and knapsacks are long gone, and while slipping a water tank onto the back of a tray truck was the popular choice for many years, CFA’s fleet has evolved dramatically over the past 80 years.

When CFA formed, the organisation inherited a range of former war surplus trucks, though most firefighting trucks in the 1950s were Austins (pictured below centre). These tankers were the workhorses of the rural fleet for many years, holding 400 gallons (1,800 litres). The Austin pumper followed for urban brigades, which had a frontmounted pump and a 350-gallon (1,592 litres) per minute capacity.

CFA’s financial focus in the 1950s was purchasing trucks and trailer units. By 1960, CFA had 773 vehicles in its fleet – 516 of them in rural brigades.

Small town units were built which included more ladders, hoses, and larger pumps. Small four-wheel drive, agile Willys trucks (pictured below right) were the forerunners to our current ultralights and slip-ons. The size of our tankers and pumpers grew in capacity as new trucks became available.

It was soon realised more than one type of vehicle was required for the variety of fire calls being attended. CFA started to manufacture specialised vehicles to suit our diverse needs such as radio communication vans, hazmats, road accident rescue, high angle rescue, mine rescue, rehabilitation, salvage, lighting, telebooms, ladder platforms, aerial pumpers, alpine and tracked vehicles (pictured below), sand tankers, breathing apparatus vans, field operations vehicles, hose layers and educational units.

Today, most fire trucks are twin cab and have air conditioning. Safety features such as rollover protection systems, heat shields, sprinklers, window curtains, and remote control monitors are common.

THE EVOLUTION OF FIRE STATIONS

From tin sheds, red brick buildings to weatherboard structures and ex-army Nissen huts, the home base for CFA brigades across Victoria has evolved significantly over the past 80 years.

Before 1950 farm sheds were the garage for rural fire brigade trucks. Surplus ex-army Nissen huts were supplied to many bush brigades after the war.

From the 1950s primitive stations were made from fibro cement. In October 1951 CFA borrowed £66,000 from the government to construct fire stations.

From 1953 CFA embarked on a program of building galvanised iron sheds for rural brigades, renovating and extending urban fire stations and building several new ones.

CFA borrowed £50,000 to build 40 sheds for rural fire trucks and urgently-needed urban fire stations. Brigades erected the two-bay or single-bay prefabricated iron buildings themselves. These ‘tin sheds’ became landmarks throughout Victoria and were a public sign of a community prepared to defend itself.

By 1956 the building program for the urban brigades was well underway.

In the 2000s a new generation of modern stations with extra facilities replaced older stations around the state. They included amenities that conformed to current building standards, with consideration for sustainability and supportive of more diverse communities and membership.

CFA’s origin story over its first year involves 185 brigades transferring from the Country Fire Brigades Board, and 776 brigades from the Bush Fire Brigades Committee. Volunteer associations also predate CFA, with our genesis grounded by the formation of the Country Fire Brigades Association in 1885, and the Bush Fire Brigades Association in 1928.

And while many volunteers were cautious of centralised organisation and the perceived loss of their brigade identity and equipment, CFA’s early successes would prove resounding. CFA benefited from the skill and local knowledge of its volunteers, and brigades benefited from the shared leadership and resources of the authority. Over time, each has contributed to the evolution of the other, forever establishing that CFA as a united force in defence of its communities would always be greater than the sum of each of its individual parts.

The innovation and ingenuity of CFA volunteers has led CFA to be among the preeminent fire services in the world, the contributions of its members central to its success.

Countless innovations have been pursued over the years, such as the first 800-gallon tanker followed by the 400-gallon composite small town tanker. These were both born from brigade experiments, a tradition that continues to this day. So too was the introduction by volunteers of field radios, leading to CFA adopting mobile radio and base stations that revolutionised communications.

The grassland fire spreader plotter invented by a CFA volunteer was the precursor to today’s fire prediction modelling, with even the term ‘Total Fire Ban’ adopted after volunteer insistence that the precursor term ‘Acute Fire Danger Day’ did not properly capture the imperative intended.

It is impossible to quantify the positive impact CFA and its brigades have had on the people of Victoria. While history only captures the losses, the ‘saves’ are no doubt exponentially higher.

Thank you to all the generations that have come before, and those who will proceed us. For surely the true value of the organisation is found within its people – the brave and selfless CFA men and women who not only stand in defence of their communities when required, but tirelessly educate, plan and prepare for the prevention of fire and other disasters. This rich legacy is cause for optimism that the next 80 years will be just as profound as the first.

VFBV CEO Adam Barnett