Structural firefighting course conquered

By Lachlan Ellis

A local fire brigade has congratulated one of its members, after his recent completion of the CFA Structural Firefighter Course.

Twenty-five-year-old Jakob Lowry is a member of the Greendale Rural Fire Brigade, and said choosing to do the course tied in with why he joined the CFA in the first place.

“I decided to do the course for the same reason I decided to join the CFA, I wanted to put back into the community,” Mr Lowry told the Moorabool News.

“I joined the CFA at the same time as my father, as we are both passionate about giving back to the community. It was also a great way to spend time together.”

Mr Lowry has been a firefighter for around nine years, and after a year of service as 3rd Lieutenant at Greendale, was recently voted to 2nd Lieutenant.

Greendale Rural Fire Brigade thanked him via social media for making the “significant time commitment and dedication” to do the course – it required multiple prerequisite courses, then seven three-hour theory classes at the Gordon Fire Station, followed by a practical section.

“In these [theory] classes, we went over concepts such as search and rescue, fire behaviour in structures, ventilation and more. After the theory classes we had a weekend of practical classes at the VEMTC Central Highlands training centre that went from 9 am to 5 pm. We went over everything we had learned, both in the course and knowledge from our prior experiences,” Mr Lowry said.

“The more people that we have that are trained in structural firefighting in the area, the faster we can turn-out to structural fires in Greendale and the surrounding areas.”