Clarence Valley kids raise $7,000 in a day for the 'firies' and Angourie village residents raised $15,950 to give to their local bushfire brigade

The Daily Examiner, 16 November 2019, p.6:

For some of the 3000 students at 15 local public schools, the best way they could help local Rural Fire Service units was to mix up their socks. 

Or even paint their hair pink. While it’s not your usual method, the students banded together yesterday in a little bit of crazy dress to raise more than $7000. 

Students were encouraged to dress up, and give a gold coin donation to go towards local units who have been busy defending our communities from recent bushfires. 

Grafton High School SRC organisers Carmen Dundon and Natasha Clausen said they wanted to do something to give the crews some respite. 

“Quite often the RFS has to go back out after fighting fires and fundraise just to support themselves, so we thought we’d help them out,” Ms Clausen said. 

Initially organised between Grafton High and Grafton Public, word soon spread of the idea, and 15 schools participated with more than 3000 students taking part. 

“It grew way more than what we thought it would,” Ms Dundon said. “But everyone knows someone who has been affected, and it’s great to see the community come together.” 

Grafton High School principal Peter South said that it was an amazing effort from the students. 

“You can see the kids very much care and feel for other kids and understand how important the RFS is in keeping people safe,” he said.

“There was no hesitation, all the schools just jumped to be part of it.” 

Mr South said many local schools had already been feeding and clothing children affected by the fires, with school communities at Baryulgil and Nymboida in classrooms at Grafton Public while their schools were closed.

“Everyone has been doing their bit to chip in,” he said.

The Daily Examiner, 16 November 2019, p.7:

Angourie residents have raised almost $16,000 for the Wooloweyah bushfire brigade to say thank you for recent efforts. 

Rapturous applause was given to the Wooloweyah Fire Brigade and NSW Rural Fires Services at Angourie as the community rallied to raise $15,950 in response to their tireless efforts during the Shark Creek bushfire. 

The recent bushfire came perilously close to the village of Angourie and Angourie Residents and Ratepayers Association Inc president Grant Jennings thanked the fireys on behalf of everyone in the seaside town.

Expressing the sentiment of the community, one resident said they were grateful to the Wooloweyah RFS and other locals who “did such a gallant job protecting our houses in Angourie”. 

Mark Evans, from Wooloweyah Fire Brigade, said the money would go towards essential firefighting equipment.

The Daily Examiner, 16 November 2019, p.7: 

The biggest cheer to come from the Nymboida residents’ meeting came after local RFS captain Paul Johnston addressed the gathering. 

But Mr Johnston said the whole community deserved the praise. “It was the way everyone worked together that got us through this,” he said. 

“People like the ‘scratch brigade’ who worked so hard over the weekend, after the fire went through, going around making things safe, took so much pressure off us.” 

Mr Johnston said half a dozen or more residents had attached tanks and pumps to the back of utes and trucks and ridden around the village, dousing pockets of fire. 

“They were our unofficial support brigade and allowed us to concentrate on the fire front,” he said. 

He said the size and speed of the fire as it hit Nymboida made it impossible to halt. 

“We could not have stopped that fire with 100 trucks,” he told the meeting. 

He was not sure how many units were working on Friday night, but he estimated at least 20.....

Readers, you too can show your appreciation of the NSW Rural Fire Service by donating directly to your local fire brigade or by going to: 

https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/volunteer/support-your-local-brigade

You can also make a bank deposit to NSW RFS:

Account Name: NSW Rural Fire Service
Bank: Westpac BSB: 032-001 Account No: 171051

Queenslanders wishing to support their own rural fire services can donate at:

 https://www.rfbaq.org/donate-to-rfbaq

Prime Minster Abbott denies South Australian bush fires have anything to do with climate change - Australian firies not amused

 Jim Casey , state secretary of the NSW Fire Brigade Employees’ Union in The Guardian, 7 January 2014

Junkee telling it like it is on 8 January 2015: 

In the past week we’ve seen bushfires consume huge stretches of land in South Australia and Victoria. 19 communities totalling thousands of residents were forced to evacuate their homes around Adelaide, more than 2,000 firefighters were called upon to battle the flames, and 32 homes were destroyed. On the other side of the country, Perth faced weather so hot it literally broke the internet and let people fry eggs on the sidewalk. Similarly, Melbourne has seen each day creep closer and closer to 40 degrees while simultaneously bearing the brunt of surprise tropical storms that brought down power lines, severely damaged people’s homes and saw skydivers tossed around the earth like human confetti.

We’ve had better summers.

But this morning, in an effort to respond to the worst of this craziness, Tony Abbott went on a tour of the recently contained bushfire site at Adelaide Hills and acknowledged that climate change is indeed a thing that exists. “Climate change is real [and] humanity does contribute to it,” he said. Seriously. This is a thing that has happened.

Abbott then met with volunteers and members of the affected community and announced his intention to offer disaster recovery payments of up to $1,000 per person and a 13-week Centrelink allowance for those who have been out of work because of the fire. “The worst of nature brings out the best in people,” he said. “You have responded magnificently to all of the challenges you have faced.”

But, never to leave a press conference with an entirely positive reception, he then went on: “Over time climate change could make a difference to these sorts of occurrences [but] I think it is wrong to try to attribute particular natural disasters to climate change.”

“We think that Australia is making a strong and effective contribution to reducing emissions,” he said without a hint of sarcasm.

Despite his words of praise for the firies, a lot of them have a pretty different message for the PM than the one he’d probably like to hear.

Yesterday, State Secretary of the NSW Fire Brigade Employee’s Union Jim Casey penned an op-ed in The Guardian that directly appealed to the Abbott government for stronger action against climate change, following the bushfire in Adelaide Hills.

“Changes in weather behaviour are making bushfires bigger and more dangerous,” he wrote. “We need the federal government to start being a part of the solution to this problem, rather than denying it exists. This is the critical decade for international action on climate. The recent unexpected statements from both China and the US on the question of carbon emissions gives some hope that action may be taken, but if this does occur it will be in spite of our own government’s position.”

Sadly, these pleas aren’t even new. Firefighters have been trying to get the government to take action on this issue for years (look here’s one, and some more; actually, maybe it’s all of them). Now, as their concerns have not been fully dealt with, the Climate Council are saying firefighter numbers will likely have to double to deal with the increasing threat of fires in a hotter and more unpredictable climate. Here’s hoping there are still lots of little kids who really like the idea of fire poles.

After being constantly humiliated on the world stage, having his arse handed to him by the leader of the free world, and clocking in only one step ahead of Saudi Arabia in the latest global Climate Change Rankings, it’s no surprise that the PM would want to speak out about climate change now.

But whether you’re a firefighter or just a person who doesn’t really like the idea of living in a place that might spontaneously combust at any given minute, it’s kind of worrying that the PM thinks this is the best he can do.