‘It’s not all about the glory’

EVERY now and then people just drop by and ask if they can join the Cambridge Volunteer Fire Brigade. The small, leafy green Waikato town has a waiting list.

It bucks the trend in smalltown New Zealand where volunteer fire brigades are struggling to get numbers.

So why does Cambridge have a waiting list?

‘‘Why? Probably because the boss is so good,’’ chief fire officer Don Gerrand says with a laugh.

For Gerrand, whose son is a volunteer and grandson is on the waiting list, it wasn’t so much a choice to join 48 years ago. ‘‘I joined on my wedding day,’’ he recalls. ‘‘My father-in-law was the fire chief then.’’

Gerrand jokes, but, for him, a sense of community spirit is why he gives up his free time, which can include weekends and precious holidays.

‘‘It’s not about filling the gaps in your life. You can’t just pick and choose when to be a volunteer firefighter.’’

There are 24 people to service the town of about 20,000 people. And because many in this small rural town, ringed by farms and horse studs, don’t work close to the station, the brigade has to be selective about who it chooses.

It needs a core of volunteers to rely on, people who are willing to sacrifice their weekends and holidays.

‘‘You have to sacrifice something to give back,’’ Gerrand says. ‘‘It’s not all about the glory.’’ have been going for a long time and it’s been sustained by an ongoing effort of people who are very generous of their time.’’

McGill says the top reasons why people put their hand up is to serve their community and protect and save lives.

‘‘They’re in New Zealand’s most remote and small communities, so they really respond to local community need – whatever it is. Often they’re the only response in those communities . . . this is why some people join and why they stay in the brigade. There’s a strong sense of purpose’’.

But the population is growing faster, and most significantly for the rural brigades, the population is drifting away from provincial towns and into the cities. So volunteers have had to adapt. Crews have upgraded to becoming medical first responders, attending 10,000 medical incidents a year. They are also taking on policing roles, too.

‘‘There are 50 brigades across the country who are classified as first responders who are trained to a higher level by the ambulance services because they’re in communities where there is not an ambulance service nearby,’’ McGill says. ‘‘There’s a lot of people’s lives being saved through that arrangement.

‘‘What has changed is the Fire Service now takes a much wider range of roles than we did a couple of decades ago. Urban search and rescue, a whole range of rescue activities and medical coresponse.’’

At the heart of volunteer firefighters’ service to their communites, is an innate heroism. Some, like 52-year-old Mid-Canterbury firefighter Barry Keen who died in 2009 when a burning tree branch fell on him as his crew turned up at a stubble burn-off at Willowby, near Ashburton, give their lives.

Others contribute to the thousands of stories of bravery and saved lives.