WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services (6AR and 6IP) (Including the Fire Services, SES & VMRS) and Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions
Tyranus wrote:Otherwise it may be a trip to somewhere like Little Caesers (As SamW and I were treated to at the one incident we attended a number of weeks ago) Just depends on who's at the fire and what credit card limit they have have....
Yep, I've gotten Little Caesars a couple of times at local fires. As a matter of fact, I'm eating one of their finest right now
Must say that the Salvos do an absolutely outstanding job with their mobile kitchens, and there is no toasted sandwich that tastes quite as good as the ones they have at 5am after being out all night.
From my experience at fires with SJA catering is pretty good. DEC definitely have a catering trailer. BBQs and the like built in and i've seen a small portable cool room (rental) with it too. I've had some pretty good meals from there. Steak and onion sandwhichs, the good old sausage sizzle, cakes, biscuits, bacon and egg rolls. Subway too. Soft drinks galore including choc milk at a couple of incidents. At a couple of fires i've seen hot food wrapped up and taken out to crews in 4wds with drinks.
Never had a bad meal at a fire i must say. It's all been pretty good grub. At dwellingup they had a whole buffet going at breakfast including toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, tomatoes the lot.
Can't say there are many big fires that i've seen first aid standby at in the NT. Actually none at all.
I can't remember if this question was ask when i was scrolling through this subject... but does anyone know the classifications for the different refreshment levels?
If you have a look at the Emergency Management Australia Website under publications and i think manuals there is actually an emergency catering/refreshments manual that has all sorts of recommendations in it and suggested items for each level/duration. www.ema.gov.au
Grade Meal type 1 Water (every hour) 2 Refreshment Packs (working between 1 to 3 hours) 3 Light Meal (sandwiches, rolls) (working between 3 to 6 hours) 4 Substantial Meals (nutritional value considered) (working over 6 hours)
FESA has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with The Salvation Army for the establishment of the position of The Salvation Army Emergency Services State Director. The purpose of the position is to provide catering services to FESA and Western Australia Police (WAPOL) during an operational emergency or specified event, on request, subject to the capacity of the available resources at the time.
In the Metropolitan area, The Salvation Army Emergency Service State Director should be considered the primary coordinator and provider of catering services for FESA and WAPOL operations.
In the country, The Salvation Army Emergency Service State Director also maintains the provision of emergency service at a number of regional locations, and where available, can provide the primary service.
Through catering pre planning, FESA operational managers are required to identify these services, any service delivery gaps and develop plans to ensure that service gaps are facilitated with alternate arrangements.
SJANT wrote:From my experience at fires with SJA catering is pretty good. DEC definitely have a catering trailer. BBQs and the like built in and i've seen a small portable cool room (rental) with it too. I've had some pretty good meals from there. Steak and onion sandwhichs, the good old sausage sizzle, cakes, biscuits, bacon and egg rolls. Subway too. Soft drinks galore including choc milk at a couple of incidents. At a couple of fires i've seen hot food wrapped up and taken out to crews in 4wds with drinks.
Never had a bad meal at a fire i must say. It's all been pretty good grub. At dwellingup they had a whole buffet going at breakfast including toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, tomatoes the lot.
Can't say there are many big fires that i've seen first aid standby at in the NT. Actually none at all.
All DEC work centers have their own catering trailer and person to set up and prepare meals, the first emergency shift is 24 hours before relief, so its not unusual for crews to work over 24+ hours straight and good meals are essential in working such long hours, if you cant get to them for a meal they will do whatever it takes to get a HOT meal to you, breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight meal.
It sounds like you've got catering pretty well stitched up over here. I couldn't stuff everything we got given at Bridgetown in.
Sometimes in Sydney we'd get one of the RFS catering trucks, sometimes Salvos or Apex or SES, sometimes whichever shop was open. If you were near the road it was usually pretty good but if you were out in the bush you'd hope for the best.
There was one night down on the Hawkesbury River were we ended up walking 5kms with 60L fuel, a 3'5hp pump, spare batteries, eskies and hot thermoses for the crews that went in before us. No-one was looking forward to dragging it all back out so it was lucky the tide came in and we could boat it back.
Another time on a night fire someone arranged to leave all the food on a big rock and go back for more gear. Unfortunately the possums beat us back to the rock and there wasn't much untouched.
There was also the story of a fire where someone had the bright idea of parachuting supply boxes out of a light aircraft. As the story goes, the chutes didn't open and they had packed soft drinks with the sandwiches.
I had gourmet pizza once for a midnight meal...about an hour of travel in a hot box on one hell of a bumpy road and it didn't look anything like a pizza... some meals just aren't made for a bumpy road! They started flying meals in via a chopper after that.
My personal belief is that FESA isn't set up for large scale bushfire fighting (a lot of the brass are multi skilled, when sometimes you need specialists) , so when they have a largish incident the logistics for things like meals doesn't run very smoothly, hence your warm coke and cold chicken. Sometimes red rooster just doesn't work because of the time to deliver.
What is the Salvo truck set up to cook? A little bit of a mix goes a big way, but then you also need it all ready to go for the full fire season.
To cater properly on a fire ground is a huge ask and if crews are on 12 hour shifts really they should be fed when they arrive, in the middle of shift and then when they leave, but I can see FESA expecting people to eat before they leave home and when they get home and then the meal on the fire ground all of a sudden becomes a snack i.e. toasty etc.
I guess they just see it as 'if you don't like it don’t volunteer' and then as long as they have the numbers for a turn out then there is no problem so the cold chicken keeps flowing!
But then again things might have changed, last time I was fed by FESA was a while ago and they could only seem to do toasties so things should have changed by now, sometimes cold chicken just happens no matter what, should only be once per fire season though.
That's why you have Brigade officers - feed back to them and get them to feed back to the Brigade's Area Manager for further action. AMs and DMs can't read minds - tell them. Only then will action happen.
Nothing wrong with a toasted sandwich in the middle of the night. Better than nothing. And lets not forget that the salvoes that come out at all hours of the night are volunteers as well. The last thing they want to hear is a bunch of ungratful firefighters whinging about what food they are getting. I have been to jobs where I have had sandwiches and other jobs where I have had fish and chips, fruit salad and other food. It all depends on the duration. The longer the job the better they will set up. If you expect a gourmet meal after 4 hours forget it but if it is a protracted incident then you could expext more.
.
