It\u2019s time to celebrate another one of the successful Ashbury Community Fund grant applicants, the Freshwater Creek CFA.
\nThe Country Fire Authority was established in 1944 to reform rural fire management in Victoria after a succession of devastating bushfires. The new CFA brought together the existing local community brigades under the one piece of legislation.
\nFreshwater Creek CFA is one of over 1,200 brigades located around regional Victoria, and plays a vitally important role in the community, and is responsible for fire suppression, rescues, and response to other accidents and the local area \u2013 especially during the long hot Australian summer months!
\nWe spoke with the Brigade\u2019s Tony McMeel to learn a little more about the organisation and about how he became involved.
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\nTell is about how you became involved with Freshwater Creek CFA and your role there?
\n\u201cOver the past 30 years, I\u2019ve been involved with three different CFA brigades, largely based on where I\u2019ve been living and farming. First up I was a member of the Bannockburn CFA. Then I joined Bostock\u2019s Creek CFA which is part of the Cobden Group. And for the past 5 years I\u2019ve been with the Freshwater Creek CFA brigade where I currently occupy multiple roles \u2013 my rank is 4th Lieutenant; I\u2019m also the Recruitment Officer; plus I oversee Brigade\u2019s Community Safety and Community Engagement programs.\u201d
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\nTell us a little about the Freshwater Creek CFA?
\n\u201cThe brigade had been established a little before the CFA in the early 1940s, making it one of CFA Victoria\u2019s original brigades, and there are still a small handful of members who have been involved with it for most of that time, or who joined the Brigade because their fathers were founding members. One of them, Les Grossman, who unfortunately passed away last year, spent over 70 years of service with the Brigade, and for most of that time he played an active role in the brigade including a significant stint as the group communications officer.\u201d
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\nWhat are the most rewarding things about being involved in the local CFA?
\n\u201cBeing a member of the broader CFA is definitely rewarding because it performs such vital functions for both the State and the local community, especially in the area of community safety. At a more grassroots level, I liken being a member of a local brigade, like ours, to being a member a fantastic team where everyone is working towards a common goal of doing their best for the local community.\u201d
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\nWhat are the biggest challenges facing Freshwater Creek CFA?
\n\u201cLike all CFA brigades, we face two key challenges. The first of these is finding volunteers who are both locally based in the brigade area and who are also actually available to turn out to incidents on a weekday or whenever fires or other emergencies strike. Secondly, there\u2019s the challenge that comes with managing, directing and caring for visitors who travel through the Brigade area on high fire risk days (i.e. heading to the beach), who don\u2019t fully understand the fire risks they could be facing.\u201d
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\nWhat are the most critical and\/or frequently called upon services run by Freshwater Creek CFA?\u00a0
\n\u201cThe Brigade is regularly called up to respond to wildfires, grass and scrub fires, structure fires and motor vehicle incidents \u2013 basically any emergency incidents that typically require fire brigade assistance. We work primarily in the Freshwater Creek area, but from time to time we\u2019re also called upon to also support neighbouring brigades, and sometimes to assist with other fires and emergencies across the State. Some members will travel much further. For instance, this time last year I was in Queensland as part of a Victorian team supporting the Queensland Rural Fire Service\u2019s firefighting efforts!\u201d
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\nIf you were granted one wish for Freshwater Creek CFA, what would it be?
\n\u201cAs is the case throughout most of regional Victoria, for the Freshwater Creek community to continue to have a vibrant brigade, successfully supporting community safety.\u201d
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\nHow can people become involved, support Freshwater Creek CFA, donate, volunteer, etc?
\n\u201cWe\u2019re always on the hunt for more volunteers! If you are interested, you should visit the CFA website and select Volunteer Recruitment. If you live or work in or near Freshwater Creek, you can make an expression of interest through the website, and I\u2019ll follow it up with you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s time to celebrate another one of the successful Ashbury Community Fund grant applicants, the Freshwater Creek CFA. The Country…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events-local-area"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.build.optimodesign.com.au\/ashbury2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.build.optimodesign.com.au\/ashbury2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.build.optimodesign.com.au\/ashbury2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.build.optimodesign.com.au\/ashbury2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.build.optimodesign.com.au\/ashbury2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/dev.build.optimodesign.com.au\/ashbury2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.build.optimodesign.com.au\/ashbury2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dev.build.optimodesign.com.au\/ashbury2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.build.optimodesign.com.au\/ashbury2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dev.build.optimodesign.com.au\/ashbury2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}