Firefighters prepare hard for new season
THE Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries’ Working on Fire (WoF) Programme has kick-started their Summer Fire Season readiness preparations in the province with its annual Yellow Card Training Camp (YCTC).
The training camps, which began at the weekend, are running in George and Woolwekloof.
A total of 882 firefighters, of which more than 230 are Forestry Support Firefighters, are going through gruelling three-day refresher training to ensure they are ready for the coming fire season.
In line with Covid-19 safety protocol, only two teams will attend the camp at the time, limiting the number of firefighters at the camp.
Thirty-nine teams will take turns attending the camp. The training ends on September 20.
The fire season is expected to start on December 1.
The first 118 firefighters who have completed their training are from Falsebay, Ceres, and Walkerbay in Woolwekloof, while in George the Swellendam, Sedgefield, and Homtini
teams from Knysna were the first group.
They had their pass-out parade yesterday morning where they demonstrated their state of readiness.
WoF’s provincial general manager, Melany Duthie-Surtie, wished all firefighters the best.
“We are getting all our resources ready, which include firefighters, vehicles, and everything to make sure they are compliant to the safety standard so that we will be able to assist our partners during fire season. Our human resources will be evaluated to ensure the state of readiness,” Surtie said.