Four house fires and a large rubbish dump fire have kept the crew of the Bayswater Fire Brigade's Breathing Apparatus Truck on their toes.
It's been one of the busiest weeks for the team, filling dozens of oxygen cylinders and ensuring breathing masks were properly serviced at events across three districts.
"We were at a structure fire in Olinda for about two and a half hours, and a fire at a dumping ground at Aintree the next night," said third lieutenant Brendan Kloot.
"We had another two house fires at Upwey and Boronia within the week, and were also en route to a structure fire down at Capital Sound near Rosebud before being turned back before arriving."
"It's been a huge effort from the team to be committed just about every night."
Ensuring breathing apparatus sets are available is critical at a variety of incidents, and the Bayswater BA truck ensures those sets can remain in use during longer incidents.
"We are mobile filling rig so the primary job is to fill the BA cylinders up and give them back to the firefighters"
"We also do things like servicing and cleaning the masks, and we also offer atmospheric monitoring and that can determine the difference between needing to wear BA or P2 masks."
Brendan said each cylinder has roughly half an hour of oxygen in them, and approximately 12 minutes to re-fill.
For the crew of the Bayswater BA truck, the turn outs to multiple house fires, and the prolonged attendance at a HAZMAT incident at Aintree, saw a total of 56 cylinders filled for the week.
"The team filled 13 cylinders at the house fire at Olinda, and another 10 at Upwey.
"We only filled seven at Aintree, but we had to wait around for a while as it was a complex incident. It was literally a rubbish pile about 80m by 50m, of building materials like plasterboard, steel, plastic down piping and rubble."
With the team travelling across Districts 8, 13 and 14, Brendan commended the crew on one of the busiest weeks the brigade's had.
"It's a huge effort by the team to be committed just about every night."
