The Silverdale fire brigade has got a stronger crew than ever.

Volunteer Fire fighters, Natasha Thompson, Ali Turner, Zhann Smith, Jorn Douglas and John Donaldson have just retuned from Australia after completing a commander control course.

The crew went with 10 other firefighters from around New Zealand, including two from the Cook Islands.

Ms Thompson is one of only a handful of women to do the course, and the first from Silverdale Station.

“Life changing, brilliant, fantastic, superb facilities and learned so much and we all come back better equipped as firefighters” she says.

The volunteer group had been working anywhere between five and 12 years in the service. At 23 Jorn Douglas is one the youngest firefighters to complete the course.

The course funded by the New Zealand Fire Service included six months of pre course preparation, followed by acceptance onto a two week training course in Brisbane, Australia. The officers had two days of theory learning legislation and fire command theory, then spent the rest of the time doing practical training and dealing with realistic scenarios including apartment fires, car accidents, hazardous incidents and mass fuel fires.

“Australia has a top facility on Whyte Island where they can set fire to everything, you don’t have to imagine, it’s real. They set up lots of fuel fires to practice on. The facility over there is first rate we current don’t have anything like that” says district support officer Ted Fuller.

“We are very proud of them. It’s a big achievement. To ask volunteers to do six months of pre study – it’s a big commitment of time and energy” he says.

A young woman rolled this stock car on private land in Diary Flat late last month. Fire crew arrived at the scene to find the driver stuck under the car.

“The car rolled over and into the ditch. In the collision she fell out of the car, it then rolled on her trapping her under it with her face nearly stuck in the mud. We had to lift the car up so we could rescue her arms out from under it” say District Support Officer Ted Fuller.

Mr Fuller said she was taken to hospital with suspected injuries including two broken legs and a broken arm. “After we got her out, we pulled the emergency crews together for a debrief and thanked them. It was quite warming having everyone working together for the same goal”.

About 120 people, including deputy mayor John Kirikiri, attended the annual Silverdale and Manly Fire Brigades honours night last month at Orewa Community Hall.

Life honorary members, local police and ambulance personnel joined volunteer firefighters to recognize length of service put in by their peers, pictured here. True to form, some members had to leave their “one night a year” special event to attend a fire call.

This year there was a total of 214 years combined service from those members receiving honours.

Awards

Brigade awards were a feature of the honour nights. Most improved firefighter for Silverdale was Anaru Hartley with Tony Clarke for Manly. Damian Ross Murphy took out the Firefighter of the year award for Manly, with Ali Turner picking up the honour for Silverdale. The attitude effort and team spirit trophy went to Zhann Smith from Silverdale.

Sportsman of the year was shared among members of the combat challenge team which came third overall at the national competitions held in Nelson earlier this year.