From local training to national standards

Former CFS volunteer, trainer and educator Tony Wege AFSM spent decades helping develop CFS training, including representing the organisation in the development of national training standards in the 1990s.

He joined Gladstone Brigade in 1981 while teaching at Gladstone High School. A year later, his two roles crossed over in an unusual way.

In 1982, Tony and fellow CFS member George Polomka AFSM, with the support of the Gladstone High School principal, introduced CFS training as an elective for Year 10 students at the school.

Over eight weeks, 18 students worked through parts of the CFS training curriculum. There were limits to the practical work they could do, but they still got their hands on plenty of equipment. They used fire extinguishers, ladders, hydrants and hoses, learnt knots and casualty handling, and even stripped and repaired knapsacks.

The course attracted interest from the local farming community, and Tony believes it was the first time CFS training had been offered in a South Australian high school.

Gladstone High School students — A photo from December 1982 captures the class at the end of the course, gathered around George’s CFS vehicle outside Gladstone High School.

Tony’s own introduction to formal CFS training came that same year at Bowman Park near Crystal Brook. The basic firefighting program ran across four stages and about 10 days of training. Volunteers paid $20 (roughly $90 in today’s money) towards the cost of the course, a notable difference from today, when CFS training is provided to members at no cost. It gave Tony a first-hand look at the statewide training system that was beginning to take shape, before the much bigger changes that followed Ash Wednesday.

CFS training school at Bowman Park — Group photo of one of George Polomka’s CFS training schools taken at Bowman Park circa 1984. Some of those CFS firefighters whom I can name are (back left) Len Klemm (Laura), Geoff Smith (third left – Crystal Brook), Michael Furnell (fourth left – Nuriootpa), George Polomka (sixth left), Gary Bradke (right rear – Yongala), me (third from right – Nuriootpa), Ash Mildred (front left – Stirling), Alan Burgemeister (second left – Nuriootpa), Ray Goss (third left – Marree), Ian Cartwright (fourth left – Nuriootpa), Mostyn Boehm (front second right – Nuriootpa).

"The inquiry changed everything," he said. "Funding, training, the way things were done. Everything."

Chief Officer Don MacArthur introduced significant changes in the years that followed, including a new approach to training. The Country Fires Act 1989 also changed the way the CFS was funded, moving away from the previous council-based model.

"The CFS certainly came into existence in 1976, but it became more like it is today following the 1989 Act," Tony said.

Receiving a second prize for the Dry Hose Drill, Aldinga Beach 1983. David Lee, Tony Wege, Nigel Krollig, Bill Dunstan and Les Hampel (capt).

In 1993, Tony left the SA Education Department and joined the CFS on a five-year contract to represent the organisation as Australian fire services worked together to develop national training standards.

The work took him around Australia, working with representatives from metropolitan and country fire services, airport fire services, land management agencies and the Army Fire Service.

One of the challenges was that every service did things differently. They had different equipment, vehicles and procedures, so the aim wasn't to write one course that told every firefighter how to use the same piece of equipment. Instead, the group developed standards around what a firefighter needed to know and be able to do.

Tony saw that approach put into practice in 1993, when he worked with CFS and Metropolitan Fire Service trainers to rewrite breathing apparatus training against the emerging national standards. The two services used different equipment, but the required knowledge, skills and outcomes could still be consistent.

"You can write a standard above the technical level," Tony said.

Paperwork in 1994 — A group of national assessment writers at a workshop at the NSW Rural Fire Service fire station at Baulkum Hills NSW, May 1994. Gareth Evans, the AFAC convenor standing. The people in the photo are from the ACT FB, Victorian MFB, NSW FB, Queensland FB, WA CALM and Victorian DSE.

It meant each fire service could teach members using its own equipment and procedures while working towards the same national competency standards.

Those differences became particularly obvious when crews crossed state borders. Tony remembers the major CFS deployment to New South Wales in 1994, when South Australian crews arrived to find some of their equipment and communications weren't compatible.

"Our standpipes didn't fit. Our radios couldn't talk to theirs. Everything was different," he said.

Fire training at Brukunga — Fire training with burning fuels at Brukunga circa 1996.

With the national work completed in 1996, Tony spent the remainder of his contract bringing the new approach into the CFS for volunteers and staff.

Working with Greg Stone, Wayne Atkins AFSM and others across the organisation, he helped review and rewrite CFS training material to meet the national standards. He also took the new approach directly to volunteer trainers, running workshops around the state to introduce competency-based training and assessment.

Volunteer trainers were also being trained as nationally accredited trainers and assessors, helping CFS deliver the new standards across the state.

For Tony, the work was very much a team effort. “We couldn't have done it without Greg and Wayne," he said.

When Tony finished his 5-year contract, Brenton Eden AFSM continued the work and took CFS training into its next phase, including the further development of the State Training Centre at Brukunga.

"He took CFS training miles ahead of whatever I could have achieved," Tony said. "But he couldn't have done it if we hadn't laid the foundation."

The changes Tony was part of marked an important shift in CFS training. While fire services could still train people on their own equipment and procedures, they were now working towards nationally recognised standards for what firefighters needed to know and be able to do.

"We came up with national standards, which is what applies to this very day," Tony said.

Planning Officer with volunteers