Fire and Emergency Services Minister Craig Crawford officially handed over two new firefighting appliances worth more than $1.8 million to the Kitchener Street Fire and Rescue Station today.
Mr Crawford said the new appliances, funded through the State Capital Works Appliance Program, would service the South Western Region and also be deployed to the South Eastern Region and other regions when needed.
"The Urban Rescue Tender Lima appliance, worth more than $870,000, boasts a powerful Euro 5 plus environmentally friendly engine with a purpose-built rescue body," he said.
"This is a specialist appliance fitted with technical rescue equipment that has the capability for vertical rescue, swift water rescue and heavy rescue.
"It contains $166,000 worth of dedicated and advanced road crash rescue equipment (jaws of life), and recovery equipment including thermal imaging cameras.
"In addition, it boasts a remote-control inflatable work platform stowage gantry which will greatly improve response times to swift water rescue events."
Mr Crawford also handed over a Scania P320 Operations Support Unit Sierra appliance, worth more than $980,000.
"This appliance has an electronic command and control breathing apparatus with hazmat capability and an increased cargo carrying capacity," he said.
"This vehicle has a flexible, multi-purpose platform with a large response radius, providing an enhanced level of operational support across the region.
"The equipment on both vehicles will provide better visibility and safety in emergency events to improve firefighter safety and ensure greater interoperability between different appliances and their crews.
"These new appliances with their extra capabilities will assist the Kitchener Street station to respond to incidents including road crash rescues, grass and wildfires and structural fires."
The Kitchener Street Fire and Rescue Station is an extremely busy station having responded to 1365 incidents (of which they were first responder to 861 incidents), during the 2017-18 financial year.
The Station has already responded to 269 incidents (of which they were the first responder to 174) since July this year.
