General News
2 October, 2024
Fire brigade already re-stocking supplies after running out of foam
September was one of the busiest months on record for Mount Isa firefighters.
Mount Isa’s rural firefighters have been hastily restocking the station supply shelves after the fire suppression foam allocated for the entire fire season was used in a single night.
Brigade secretary Tina Munokoa said two pallets of 20-litre drums of firefighting foam – which contain about 1300 litres in total – was deployed when battling the fire that swept through the car wrecker’s yard on Duchess Road on September 12.
She said the dozens of grass fires that had raged through the city had also destroyed an unknown number of fire hoses and PPE equipment, which had to be replaced from Townsville HQ.
With fires raging at Doomadgee, Riversleigh, Pentland, Mornington Island and Dajarra in recent days, as well as a large fire on land behind the Mount Isa Mines site that left a plume of smoke hovering over the city, Ms Munokoa said the Mount Isa rural brigade was having to call on Townsville to provide repeated equipment replenishments.
“We depleted all our equipment due to the number of incidents over the past few weeks,” she told North West Weekly.
“The fire service has been great in rushing things out to us.
“We are being very proactive in making sure we have enough equipment because we just don’t know what will come over the next few weeks.
“There is a lot of fuel loading around Mount Isa.
“I think the hardest thing is for us to step away when we know that things can go wrong in our community – that’s what we sign up for.”