Fire and Rescue NSW Commander Gary Barber has assured Central West residents and business owners firefighters will still put out fires despite the drought and water restrictions.
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Mr Barber, who is the Zone Commander Western Plains FRNSW Dubbo, said firefighter's priority is to save lives and property and had "innovative apparatus" and "old school methods" at their disposal to fight building and bush fires.
"What we have done in Warren is move a 45000-litre water tanker out there parked at the council depot so if a fire occurs we certainly will have enough water to put it out," he said.
"In Dubbo, we have state of the art Compressed Air Foam Tanker at the Delroy fire station and what that does is use air to create firefighting foam rather than water, it uses so little water it is not funny.
"It is an area resource, and we are one of the only towns in regional New South Wales to have something like that.
"It is awesome, and we are fortunate to have it, and we are trying to get a second one for this area.
The tanker does the job brilliantly, and we don't have to rely on water."
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Commander Barber said firefighters don't necessarily have to use hoses and water to put out fires.
"Firefighters understand there is a drought and a water shortage, but people can rest assured we have ways and means that allow us to put out fires using very little water," he said.
"For example, we do work with the Rural Fire Service to fight bush fires, and we often use very old school ways of getting them under control.
"We still put them out, we used to use water to spray them and make sure they were completely blackened out, so there were no sparks, now we put out the perimeter of a bush fire and then we use more labour intensive methods for the rest.
"We use more firefighters to beat it out as we used to in the old days.
"So instead of putting them out in an hour, we might have crews there for six hours, but once again we will use less water."
Commander Barber said people should not be worried that blazes would not be fought because of water conservation methods.
"People should be confident we will still put out their home or business if it is on fire," he said.
"We won't say 'let's not bother' because we are trying to conserve water."
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Craig Thomson
I am a media and communications professional with experience across print, digital, social and radio broadcasts. I am currently the Editor of Australian Community Media's Launceston Examiner.
I am a media and communications professional with experience across print, digital, social and radio broadcasts. I am currently the Editor of Australian Community Media's Launceston Examiner.
