Speaker 1: I just want to share a bit of a story
Speaker 1: with you because some weeks ago I had an invitation
Speaker 1: to participate in events called Fire Operations one O one
Speaker 1: Fire Operations fire ops if you like oneh one, and
Speaker 1: without really giving you too much consideration, I.
Speaker 2: Said, oh, yeah, that'll be a really good idea.
Speaker 1: Its scheduled for tomorrow, that is a Thursday, and I'm
Speaker 1: really looking forward to doing it, so i won't be
Speaker 1: here Thursday morning and Friday morning.
Speaker 2: Friday morning, I think for recovery. Point of that is.
Speaker 1: I read an email that was sent to me by
Speaker 1: a Cat who said, and this is I'm paraphrasing a
Speaker 1: little bit Tony Mac, looking forward to having you there
Speaker 1: on Thursday. Please bring a change of underwear for after
Speaker 1: you after your shower. By the end of the day
Speaker 1: you will be hot, sweaty and smell of smoke, something
Speaker 1: we're all looking forward to. Cat Donell, good morning, Good.
Speaker 3: Morning, Kat.
Speaker 2: I should point out.
Speaker 1: That you're the acting Station Officer of Fire Ops one
Speaker 1: oh one coordinator Fire Rescue Victoria and what a joy
Speaker 1: it is to have you on the program right across
Speaker 1: Australia this morning.
Speaker 4: That's great. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate
Speaker 4: that you're coming to do the program. I think you're
Speaker 4: going to have a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Well let me be the judge that we'll talk again
Speaker 1: next I guess, but I've got to say I am
Speaker 1: looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: And how it started out.
Speaker 1: Your mutual friend ambassador of what you do is our
Speaker 1: very own David Man. About two months ago, David and
Speaker 1: a dear friend of his, Sharon, who's already done this program,
Speaker 1: who also happens, by the way, to be a Virgin Captain,
Speaker 1: Virgin el captain as Sharon and Sharon said, Oh, if
Speaker 1: you get the invitation to do this, you must do
Speaker 1: it. It's a life changing experience. Is that an accurate observation.
Speaker 4: I think it is. Yeah, Sharon had a ball. You've
Speaker 4: also had Jared Quigley come and do it, one of
Speaker 4: three ws and Elliot.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So you'll be joining the likes of Adam Goods, Roonda Birchmore,
Speaker 4: Georgie Crozier, Stevie and Michelle Paine. They've all participated in
Speaker 4: the program. So it's designed for members of Parliament, senior
Speaker 4: government officials, corporate executive leaders, entertaining entertainers, media, sporting identities
Speaker 4: and just prominent Victorians and Australians even so, you know,
Speaker 4: the reason we have it is just to kind of
Speaker 4: educate key people in the community about the role that
Speaker 4: Fire Rescue Victoria plays in the community, keeping people, infrastructure,
Speaker 4: properties and environmental faith in. The program just aims to
Speaker 4: enhance you understanding of what what Fire Rescue Victoria does.
Speaker 4: So whether that's you know, the staffing that we need,
Speaker 4: training equipment, things about response times as well as you know,
Speaker 4: getting to understand the physical strength and the mental resilience
Speaker 4: that firefighters possess. So yeah, you'll go through. You'll be
Speaker 4: put through a series of drills, challenging drills.
Speaker 1: That give you a bit of a taste of what
Speaker 1: we do, just a slight taste, I would hope.
Speaker 2: As I said, I'm really looking forward to it. How
Speaker 2: grueling would you expect it to be? Is that the
Speaker 2: right word? Grueling? You're going to be grueled, Macmatus.
Speaker 4: Suck it up and enjoy it. We'll put you through
Speaker 4: your paces. You'll be wearing full firefighting gear, turn out
Speaker 4: turn out gear and breathing apparatus so you get to
Speaker 4: really get in there, you know, pick up all the
Speaker 4: tools and squirt water around you'll get to see how
Speaker 4: physical the job is.
Speaker 2: I gives it a sense. Captain.
Speaker 1: Presumably you went through this as a youngster too. It's
Speaker 1: a bit of a it's a bit of a dream really.
Speaker 1: It's a child you think, what would it be like
Speaker 1: to climb up that ladder and spray that hose at
Speaker 1: a scorching hot fire.
Speaker 4: It's a great It is a great job. Highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: Did you have that Did you have that feeling when
Speaker 1: you were little?
Speaker 4: Not so much when I was little. It wasn't something
Speaker 4: that I thought, you know, I knew from a young
Speaker 4: age that I wanted to do. I sort of fell
Speaker 4: into it. I suppose it wasn't really on my radar
Speaker 4: being a female. There's not a lot of women in
Speaker 4: the job. We've got about five percent operational women. And
Speaker 4: it wasn't until a friend of mine who was a firefighter,
Speaker 4: said to me, you know, they want women to join.
Speaker 4: Why don't you have a guy at it? I think
Speaker 4: you'd really enjoy it. So that was how it came
Speaker 4: about for me, and a bit of a career change
Speaker 4: in my early thirties. Yeah, but it's we're certainly always
Speaker 4: encouraging people from different backgrounds and to apply, and you know,
Speaker 4: if you're thinking that it's something that you might be
Speaker 4: interested in, you know, jump on the FRV website, FIV
Speaker 4: dot gov, door au and have a look and see
Speaker 4: if it's you know, something that you might want to
Speaker 4: participate in as a career.
Speaker 1: What are the challenges when you make it a career? Presumably,
Speaker 1: like a lot of us working and you know more
Speaker 1: about this than most cat it is about shift work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, certainly the shift work. So we work two ten
Speaker 4: hour days and then to fourteen hour nights and then
Speaker 4: you come on to three days off. So yeah, there's
Speaker 4: definitely shift work. I think, you know, the thing that
Speaker 4: I love about it the most is that working in
Speaker 4: a group, like you're on station with the same people
Speaker 4: you know, and you're basically living on station. You stay
Speaker 4: there overnight. So just having that sort of team environment,
Speaker 4: being able to serve the community and help people out
Speaker 4: in you know, quite often it's the worst day of
Speaker 4: their life. Really you might be attending a really serious
Speaker 4: car accident. You know. We also do emergency medical response.
Speaker 4: That's a big part of what Fire Rescue Victoria do
Speaker 4: that a lot of people don't know. We've had over
Speaker 4: a thousand lives saved from our early access like early intervention,
Speaker 4: early access to patients being able to administer oxygen, do CPR,
Speaker 4: and have access to a defibrillator. So that's something that
Speaker 4: people probably don't know. They all sort of everyone sort
Speaker 4: of thinks we just turn up in a red chuck
Speaker 4: and squirt water onto a fire. But I think that
Speaker 4: there's a lot more to the job than people understand.
Speaker 4: And that's part of you know, people like yourself doing
Speaker 4: the fire ups one on one program is really to
Speaker 4: you know, get that understanding of the sort of time
Speaker 4: critical and highly technical and skilled work that frve fire
Speaker 4: rescue Victoria firefighters do.
Speaker 1: One of the things in Scouts many years ago they
Speaker 1: would take us at on a couple of occasions, is
Speaker 1: my recollection to the local fire station, and so you
Speaker 1: can have in those days was all boys. It's stiff
Speaker 1: changed now these days, of course, But you say, all
Speaker 1: these bunch of boys might have been twenty four to
Speaker 1: twenty fives at the time, all of us the only
Speaker 1: thing we ever really wanted to do was slide down
Speaker 1: the firepole.
Speaker 4: Well there's only one of those left in operation, really Hill, Yeah, really, Well, I.
Speaker 2: Think that's where we were taken. We were taken to
Speaker 2: the Eastern Hill fire station.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, that's the only one that's left. You know,
Speaker 4: most modern fire stations now are just a single level,
Speaker 4: So takes out those the provencity to maybe do an
Speaker 4: ankle or something like that. Do an hickel want to
Speaker 4: do an ankle before you even get on the fire truck?
Speaker 3: Thought of that?
Speaker 2: Now you just assume that these people were really highly.
Speaker 4: One that's left. You know, most modern fire stations now
Speaker 4: are just a single level, so takes out those the
Speaker 4: provencity to maybe do an ankle or something like that.
Speaker 4: Do an hickel want to do an ankle before you
Speaker 4: even get on the fire truck?
Speaker 2: Nobody thought of that. Now you're just assumed that these
Speaker 2: people were really highly skilled.
Speaker 1: They knew when to hit the pole, whend to slide
Speaker 1: down land effectively.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so Eastern Hills the last one.
Speaker 1: Oh, they just now been sort of disappointed for those
Speaker 1: sort of things, those great traditions. You just talk about
Speaker 1: young people who may be looking for, you know, a
Speaker 1: career or two. I'm sure there be people listening right
Speaker 1: now that have children and grandchildren.
Speaker 2: Is it a great career.
Speaker 1: How important are those relationships that you've form when you're
Speaker 1: doing that sort of work. I can only imagine going
Speaker 1: to a go to a triple fatality as an officer,
Speaker 1: police officer, or a fire, you know, a fire first time.
Speaker 2: That's the one thank you firefighter. I mean it's pretty confronting, cat.
Speaker 4: It is, Yeah, it is confronting. I mean we're very lucky.
Speaker 4: We've got amazing psychological support within the brigade, whether that's
Speaker 4: per peer to peer or in house psychologists so we
Speaker 4: can access external psychologists, so there is that, you know,
Speaker 4: ability to debrief and that sort of thing. But yeah, look,
Speaker 4: it's a fantastic career. We've got, you know, really great
Speaker 4: conditions that we work under. We've got you know, it
Speaker 4: is a dangerous job, but it's done as safely as possible.
Speaker 4: We have great training, we have really amazing safe systems
Speaker 4: of work that we keep us as safe as possible.
Speaker 2: So can I'll let you.
Speaker 1: Go because I know you want to get a bit
Speaker 1: of a rest before we get into this first thing
Speaker 1: on a Thursday morning.
Speaker 2: I'm really looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the other people that will be doing with
Speaker 1: me as well, they're probably hopefully sound asleep, but looking
Speaker 1: forward to it as well, and we will report back
Speaker 1: in the next week or so as to how it
Speaker 1: all unfolds. That's assuming I'm fit enough to be returning
Speaker 1: here at next week.
Speaker 4: You'll have a great You'll have a great time, and
Speaker 4: you know you'll be able to talk about the different
Speaker 4: drills you did, so we'll go into that next time.
Speaker 2: Nice to talk, Kat, and look forward to seeing on Thursday,
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 4: Look forward to seeing your Thursday.
Speaker 1: Cat Denell, Acting Station Officer, Fire Ops one O one Coordinator,
Speaker 1: Fire Rescue Victoria.
Speaker 4: Love.
Speaker 5: Here's a burning thing and it makes a fiery ring.
Speaker 5: Bound by wild desire, I fell into a ring of fire.
Speaker 3: I fell into a burning ring of fire.
Speaker 6: I went down, down, down, and the flames went fire, and.
Speaker 5: It burns, burns, burn the ring of fire, the ring
Speaker 5: of fire.
Speaker 3: I fell into a burning ring of fire.
Speaker 6: I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher,
Speaker 6: and it.
Speaker 5: Burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire, the ring of fire.
Speaker 5: The taste of love is sweetens.
Speaker 3: When hearts like ours meeting. I felt for you, lack child, Oh,
Speaker 3: but the fire went wild. I fell into a burning
Speaker 3: ring off fire.
Speaker 6: I went down down, down, and the flames went higher.
Speaker 5: And it burns, burns burns.
Speaker 3: The ring of fire, the ring of fire. I fell
Speaker 3: into a burning ring off fire.
Speaker 6: I went down, down, down, and the.
Speaker 3: Flames went higher, and it.
Speaker 5: Burns, burns, burns, Burreng Theureng five and burn burn.
Speaker 2: Catherine Dunell Cats just known as Cat. So looking forward
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 1: So this, as I say, may in fact be the
Speaker 1: last broadcast.
Speaker 2: A couple of things.
Speaker 1: We had lots of calls yesterday from all sorts of
Speaker 1: issues with regards to the first car. There's another one
Speaker 1: this morning, and I thought i'd throw it out there
Speaker 1: for a discussion at I test drove this yesterday and
Speaker 1: got a really interesting response. And the question is one
Speaker 1: double three six' nine, Three so The tony mac pertinent,
Speaker 1: Question how did you meet your best? Friend think about
Speaker 1: that for a. Moment everybody would have at least one
Speaker 1: at some point in your. Life how did you meet
Speaker 1: your best? Friend one double three six nine? Three and
Speaker 1: the other, one which was also a bit of fun
Speaker 1: WHEN i test drove this, yesterday what was the first
Speaker 1: thing you remember buying with your own? Money first thing
Speaker 1: you remember buying with your own?
Speaker 2: Money?
Speaker 1: Honey one double, three six nine, three and how did
Speaker 1: you meet your best? Friend, one double, three six nine and.
Speaker 1: Three we'll take some calls the other. Side anything you'd
Speaker 2: Like to raise on The program For australia every night