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