Having returned from battling the fires in Victoria's Alpine National Park Coleambally RFS Senior Deputy Captain Michael Lamont and Firefighter Thomas Breed are now getting ready to hold a training exercise in Coly.
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This month Coleambally RFS will be holding a training session for basic firefighting skills which Mr Breed expects will involve volunteers from 10 RFS brigades in the MIA District, as well as brigades from the Mid Murray District.
"We'd really like to get 50 volunteers attending, I don't know how it will go with it being the harvest," Mr Breed said.
This month Mr Breed and Mr Lamont joined 13 other volunteers from the MIA Strike Force which included the RFS brigades at Barellan, Coleambally, Paynters Siding, Fivebough Stony Point, Yanco, Carrathool and Hanwood.
The brigades worked alongside Victorian firefighters and crews belonging to the Department Of Electricity Land and Power working to contain a fire located within a river valley in the Dinner Plain in the Alpine National Park.
The fire burnt 13,247 hectares of land and is believed to have been started by lightning igniting dry bush land.
Mr Breed said most of his work was centered around organising logistics between the MIA Strike Force and Victorian crews.
"It's always good to see how different people operate," Mr Breed said.
"The Victorian crews run with what's called a G-Wagon, it's a different beast and it's air filters have to be cleared twice a day."
Response team coordinator Steve Kada from the RFS' Mia District Office in Griffith lead the group.
Mr Kada said the main benefit of the joint operations was that it helps make the brigades more cohesive when working together.
"It complements our training, we train to be able to work across the state with no dramas," Mr Kada said.
"There were a couple of first timers and the experience really reiterated to them the importance of the training we do and having our equipment be the same across the entire state.
"We had people from Carrathool working with people from Narrandera, you hear names and you hear voices on the radio over the years but it's good to finally meet people and you know their strengths and weaknesses."
Mr Kada said the terrain was hard going for his volunteers with the fire being centered around a river valley meaning the fire had to be fought while on a slope.
"It wasn't very wide but It was a long fire and we were concerned that with a wind change one of the flanks would become a head," Mr Kada said.
"We undertook some back burning along the eastern flank of the fire."
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