Blackall's team effort

Generally a team of 13 people make up the Blackall auxiliary, with backgrounds ranging from shire council workers to local businesses.

“It’s all about team effort and I’ve got a real good crew - they do a terrific job and we are on call 24/7,” Mr Richardson said.

“Sometimes we are called out at 2am back at 4am and started work at 7am; most of community businesses that employ firefighters are flexible.”

Mr Richardson said when faced with life threatening situations it all comes down to preparation and training.

“We train once a week as a crew together – we do structured training and combined exercises with local shire council such as a simulated plane crash airport exercise.

“A lot of our work at the moment has been ambo assist – we are all trained to do advanced resuscitation and use defibrillators – we all chip with each other.

“We support other towns with their big jobs and bushfires; being a small town most of us are in the SES as well.”

Mr Richardson said he had been in the auxiliary for close to 25 years and also volunteers in the State Emergency Service.

His involvement came about thanks to a fellow employee of the then Blackall Shire Council, who was the Blackall auxiliary captain at the time, asking if he was interested in joining up.

“I had a bit of time on my hands and so I joined up; things went from there and I became a training officer very quickly,” he said.

“I’ve been training fire fighters for the past 22 years, wherever they require, and I’m a road crash rescue instructor.”

Mr Richardson also works as a construction supervisor for the Blackall-Tambo Regional Council, which comes in handy when shire council water trucks are needed for large-scale bushfires.