Grievance Debate

Stirling Fire

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (15:08): Last Sunday afternoon, in the middle of the afternoon at the centre of Stirling, a fire broke out. It emerged fairly quickly that the fire broke out inside Woolworths, which is part of a small mall right in the middle of the town. Over the course of the following minutes and then hours, the fire quickly spread to engulf that premises. I can tell the house that what we finished up experiencing at Stirling was the largest single incident in terms of a fire response by the Stirling brigade, who were the first there, in the brigade's history.

As has been reported in subsequent days, there have been property losses amounting to possibly more than $20 million. This has been undoubtedly a huge hit on the local businesses affected: Woolworths and those small businesses that are operating in the mall and immediately outside—Carlo at Cibo and Simon at the Green Dispensary pharmacy—all of whom have been affected. That is undoubtedly going to be the subject of difficult work, of loss and of hardship for all those directly affected and for the whole community. To them all, we say: our hearts go out to you.

I rise here this afternoon to take the opportunity to thank particularly those members of local CFS brigades who attended within moments at first to apply defensive firefighting to that fire and then very soon to deploy offensive measures inside the burning structure to put that fire out and to bring an end to what could have been a fire emergency that spread far wider. As I look across the floor, I acknowledge the member for Waite, who was one of so many who attended and played her part as a member of one of those local brigades in the near vicinity.

Can I illustrate to members that the Stirling CFS brigade was the first on the scene. It was located within minutes of the location of the fire. Captain Tom Fairbrother, who will be well known to all of us through CFS circles, is a man of longstanding senior service. He arrived first with the Stirling brigade and began making the necessary calls to call in the necessary help to respond to the fire.

He will not mind me saying that he made a call to MFS somewhat sooner than might have been regulation. Two pumpers were sent up from Glen Osmond; each of them had four BA-equipped MFS officers. That meant a commander attended with them, and Commander Duncan Cochrane was on the scene from very early on as a result. Captain Fairbrother then directed traffic in what was to continue then for hours, until dark and overnight.

At approximately 4pm, CFS Deputy Chief Officer Cameron Devey arrived and took over the scene. We had the chance to catch up just now, a few moments ago. He provided what I witnessed to be what we have come to expect from CFS senior leadership: calm, professional, reassuring leadership in what were such difficult circumstances. The whole town was covered in smoke that was so thick and so enduring that it triggered an alarm at the library across the road.

I was fortunate to attend the Stirling brigade's debrief last night that ran for many hours. Apart from thanks to the minister for his information response and to the chief officer, I want to take the remaining time to just say thank you to those members of the Stirling brigade, including to Tom Fairbrother: to Michael Vickery; to Paul McLure; to Matthew Williams; to young Liam Kennedy, who was on the pump on the back of very little experience; to Justin Ranford; and to Michael Wilde. Just to take a couple of those who attended from other brigades, they included Angus Winwood—young Angus from Aldgate—and Dave Turner, the Bridgewater captain. There will be more to say about this in the time to come, but for the moment we thank you, we applaud you, heroes of the CFS, MFS and emergency response.