By BRIDGET COOK
CASEY’s fire brigades achieved what they initially thought would be impossible last week as they all came together for a rare photo opportunity.
The Cranbourne Turf Club was abuzz with excitement on Sunday 27 July as the 11 fire brigades brought together their 39 vehicles for an aerial photo to show off their fire response capacity in the Casey area.
It wasn’t an easy feat, though, with hours of planning and many factors taken into account to make the photo opportunity possible.
Operations Officer Greg Christison said it was an amazing opportunity to showcase the brigades’ capacity to service the Casey community.
“This was a chance to get together all of our fire appliances and capture an image such as this,” he said.
“One of the critical factors whilst all of our appliances were staged for the photo was that there was to be no service delivery deficiency.”
“Deputy Group Officer Ray Carr co-ordinated and planned a number of step ups into critical areas within Casey for a two hour window to ensure that the photo would go ahead as planned.”
Brigade Support Officer Megan Angel from Tooradin CFA said when the idea was brought up at a group meeting planners initially thought it would be impossible.
“All brigades were briefed that in the event of a significant incident, either whilst at the photo shoot or enroute, that the photo would be postponed until a later date,” she said.
“The Casey brigades are extremely busy, averaging around 5500 fire calls per year, so time frames were our priority.”
“We needed a statistically quiet time in the Casey catchment that was within volunteer friendly hours.”
The brigades decided on 9am on a Sunday, during the winter months to ensure all vehicles would be in the area.
“We needed to ensure that with all the plans in place the photo was captured perfectly within 10 minutes of the appliances being staged, so we recruited CFA photographer Keith Pakenham and the Dandenong ladder platform to launch him high enough in the air to take the shot,” Ms Angel said.
“Because of our tight time frames all vehicles were pre-staged in typology so our parking marshals could call in appliances in the correct order.”
Ms Angel thanked all those who made the photo possible including neighbouring brigades for stepping up into the Casey area, the parking marshals and Cranbourne Turf Club for the venue.
