Wyndham fire chief James Walker
James Walker has been the Wyndham fire chief for 10 years, and a volunteer firefighter for 31 years. There are about 22 volunteers at the station and they attend about 40 to 50 callouts per year. During the day Walker is a supervisor at Fonterra. Q: Why did you join? A: I joined because my father, he was in the brigade for 36 years. When I was 16 it was time to come along. I guess it was just a natural thing to do for me Q: Tell us about your station. A: This station was opened in 1999. It was built on the original site where the first station was built back in the late 50s. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with the fire service they said for us to pull it down and they will build a new one. It was Easter time so we all rushed in and pulled it down. We got a phone call halfway through the next week telling us to stop. It was too late, the fire station was on the ground. So hence we’ve got all we’ve got today which is a very comfortable two-bay station and a goodsize social room for us. I guess it’s a bit of a home away from home. Q: What is the best part of the job? A: The best part of the job is the people. You get to meet a lot of different people all around the country. You get to learn new techniques, new way of doing things, new ways of training.
Q: Are their any unique challenges for your patch?
A: Daytime manning during the week. We’ve got people in our brigade that are shift workers or contractors or builders or whatever and a lot of them work out of town. So any given day we might only have two or three firemen in the town so that’s always a bit of a worry. We assist Edendale quite a bit to Fonterra. That’s quite a large area up there and it’s a large risk for us. Volunteers go up there and work with some of the chemicals and hazards that are in that place.
Q: Does your brigade have much involvement in the community?
A: We have a claybird shooting once a year which is our main fundraiser on Anzac Day every year. Everyone is invited to come. It’s a good place for people to learn about guns and in conjunction with the Mataura Gun Club we run the event. We get a lot of young kids that come along with their fathers and they learn the safety aspects of firearms. We always try and have an open day once a year where we have the station open for the people because it is the people’s station, it’s not my station or our station, it’s owned by the taxpayer so it’s open for all the community to look and see what sort of equipment we have and see what we do.
Q:Is there any one day on the job that sticks out as being quite memorable for you?
A: Probably a once-in-a-lifetime fire was when the high school went up. 1994, I think it was. We lost four classrooms at Menzies College. That would be a pretty memorable fire for me and I hope never to have to do it again but it was a great thing to experience as well.
and the New Zealand Fire Service have teamed up this year to promote a fire safety awareness campaign as winter fast approaches. As part of the Hot Spots campaign we are also profiling some of our many fire brigades throughout the south.