Rural Fire Brigade
The Mount Riverview Rural Fire Brigade is the local fire service for the township of Mount Riverview. Mount Riverview is a residential town within the Blue Mountains, 74 kilometres west of Sydney situated within the Blue Mountains National Park. The Mount Riverview Rural Fire Brigade is a Brigade member of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and was officially started on the Thursday 12 December 1968 under the title 'Mount Riverview Bush Fire Brigade' becoming fully operational in 1969. In 1997 the Brigade was renamed (following the introduction of the Rural Fires Act) to the Mount Riverview Volunteer Rural Fire Brigade.
Current information
At present, the brigade has 30 active, 17 life and a small group of ordinary members as well as 4 cadets . The brigade operates under the administration of the Blue Mountains Rural Fire District operating from the Central East Region .
The brigades most notable call to action was during the Black Christmas bushfires . The Black Christmas were bushfires that burnt for almost three weeks from 24 December 2001 across New South Wales, Australia. It was the longest continuous bushfire emergency in NSW history. More than 170 firefighters worked for several days to protect the tiny township of Mount Riverview as it was encircled by bushfires . The brigade also supplied several crews and specialist equipment to assist during the 2003 Canberra bushfires which caused severe damage to the outskirts of Canberra, the Australian capital city.
The brigade is an active participant in the Rural Fire Service FireWise program. The program is run by RFS members trained in community education techniques and aims to create a fire-sensible population where residents can become involved with fire safety in their community .
Equipment and training
The brigade, at present, is in possession of two fire fighting appliances as well as a personnel carrier.
The brigade's heaviest vehicle is known as 'Riverview 1', and is a Category 1 (Cat 1) tanker. It falls in the 'heavy appliance' category and is capable of holding 3300 litres of water.
The brigade also has a secondary appliance called 'Riverview 7' which is a dual cab Category 7 tanker, and a personnel carrier (callsign 'Riverview PC') which is capable of carrying up to 10 individuals including driver. The Brigade also maintains an 'air base operations support trailer' to assist with establishing and running air base operations during operations requiring helicopter support . Several brigade members are specialliay trained members that form part of the Remote Area Firefighting Team (RAFT) program and are able to deploy at a moments notice across the State .
Read more about this topic: Mount Riverview, New South Wales
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