Train the way you play
CFS 50 YEARS | 1976–2026
This story is part of our CFS 50th anniversary series, looking back at the people, places and moments that have shaped CFS over the past 50 years.
His early work in CFS training involved an overhead projector, a graphic arts camera and a lot of transparencies, as Wayne Atkins AFSM recalls.
Wayne joined Burnside Emergency Fire Service (EFS) as a 17-year-old volunteer in 1972 before transferring to Athelstone CFS in 1980, where he remains a volunteer today. He joined CFS staff in 1987 and moved to the State Training Centre at Brukunga following stints at Brookway Park and in the regions.
At the time, much of the course material was presented using black-and-white overhead transparencies made from photocopies. Wayne had a background in graphic arts and could see there was a better way to do it.
Using techniques and equipment from his previous work, he began producing full-colour transparencies. It was an innovative approach for fire service training at the time and soon attracted interest beyond South Australia.
CFS went on to produce training material for other emergency services in South Australia and interstate, including an Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System (AIIMS) overhead training package for fire agencies around Australia.
Some of the practical training delivered in those days would be difficult to imagine now.
Flammable liquid training used real fuel on water, giving firefighters a highly authentic lesson in how quickly burning fuel could move and how to control it. Once it was alight, however, there was no switch to turn it off.
As concerns grew about the environmental impact of the training, Wayne and Brenton Eden AFSM travelled to Singapore to see how live fire training was being delivered there.
The facilities they visited were using cleaner, controllable fire props that could provide realistic training without relying on the same flammable liquids being used at Brukunga.
After travelling more than 5,000 kilometres to see the technology in action, they discovered much of the equipment had been designed and built considerably closer to home, in Victoria.
They returned to South Australia and used what they had seen to help develop an LPG-based system at Brukunga. Firefighters could still train around fire, but instructors had much greater control over the exercise and could shut it down if something went wrong.
“If something happened and we burst a hose line or someone tripped over or tripped on a prop, you could knock the fire out straight away,” Wayne said.