MEMBERS of the Maiden Gully CFA recently celebrated a silver anniversary, marking twenty-five years protecting the community.
Andrew Howlett is the current treasurer, and was Captain when the brigade launched in 1998 until 2011.
“We’ve got a pretty good fire station, we’ve done a lot of it ourselves, done a lot of fundraising, and we’re now well equipped,” he said.
“The challenge is always with a growing community, you’ve got to grow the infrastructure.
“Last year we did 77 calls, and it will increase as the community grows.
“We are doing, within Maiden Gully, many significant grass fires. We’ve had one or two over the last 12 months.
“Usually, we get our fair share of vehicle crashes. We’ve got to help with extraction, when people have got stuck in, or clean up afterwards, get rid of spilt fuel.”
Mr Howlett said other callouts are generally for house fires and ruptured gas mains with about half within Maiden Gully, while the rest elsewhere.
“We did a number of calls supporting all the flood recovery in Rochester and Echuca where we had crews in there for quite a number of days,” he said.
Along with the 25-year celebrations, some brigade members were presented with awards like the National Emergency Medal.
“They’re people who went away to various places, including Mallacoota, which was pretty tough work, and some went to NSW,” Mr Howlett said.
“The National Medal represents years of diligent service. You’ve got to be an operational firefighter, you’ve got to put in a lot of effort, and generally, in our brigade, you’ve had to have held an operational leadership role.”