Last Friday night, at the Yanac Public Hall, about 50 past and present locals joined to celebrate the 80 years of community service of the Yanac CFA. The evening commenced with pizzas from Maggi’s Pizza followed by an informative history lesson about the CFA at Yanac.
The brigade started as the Yanac Bush Fire Brigade, which was formed in 1942. The only equipment they had were fire beaters and knapsacks, until 1949 when they were able to borrow an engine-driven pump kept at the Yanac Railway Station.
In 1952 a second-hand international truck was purchased jointly by Yanac and Broughton brigades, funded by landowner levies. A shed was built at Yanac to house it.
A new international C1300 4×4 truck was provided by CFA in 1967. Two-way radios were introduced in 1969. An international ACCO 4×4 truck, which was bigger and carried more water, was supplied in 1977. This needed a bigger shed, so CFA built a new one on the same site. Since then, we have had 2 Hinos and an ISUZU. A new, much larger shed was built in 2012.
The alerting system started with seeing smoke, then the manual telephone operator let people know by phone. When the phones went automatic, a system of ringing 4 people who then rang 5 or 6 other people was introduced. A siren also alerted those close enough to hear it. In early 2000, pagers were introduced and now an app on a smartphone is working where there is phone service.
Our brigade also established a fire spotting tower on Beattie’s Hill and a radio repeater and weather station on Maidenhills.
A competition running team was organised in 1981 that provided a lot of training and fun for a good few years.
After the trip down memory lane, the life members, Terry Miller, Bruce Beattie, Lester Judd along with Captain Craig Smith, unveiled a new honour board. Bruce Beattie spent many hours gathering the information for the board.
Following dessert ACFO Mark Gunning from Horsham presented service awards ranging from 5-year certificates, through to Terry Miller receiving his 65-year service medal. A fabulous effort by one and all and well worth the celebration and acknowledgement of selflessness.
Mark also presented Lester Judd with Shirley Judd’s life membership for many years of service as a communications/ radio operator.
In total, the awards evening covered 885 years of volunteer service to the Yanac CFA and to the wider Yanac community. Throughout the years, volunteers have attended a range of incidents locally and have made up strike teams to attend larger fire events elsewhere.
The brigade is always looking for more volunteers, so if you are interested in serving your community, please contact the Yanac Captain Craig Smith 0429 539 225 for more information.
This article appeared in the Nhill Free Press & Kaniva Times, 23 August 2023.
