West Nowra Rural Fire Brigade

22/06/2026

The Weekly “Westy” #202 22/06/2026
G’day again followers, and welcome to another edition of the Weekly “Westy”
This week has seen us responding to 2 incidents.
🔥Wednesday 4:46pm. We were dispatched to an unknown fire at Comberton. Upon rolling the trucks we were advised that the location was more the Worrigee side of the state forest. Our crews arrived on scene to find and abandoned shed, that was part of the old Worrigee Golf Club alight.
🚨Friday 10:55am. We were dispatched to an Automatic Fire Alarm (AFA) at Mundamia. On arrival it was ascertained the alarm was activated by excessive dust.

In some news we missed last week, at the general meeting a number of members received certificates for recently completed training courses. Congratulations to all.
That meeting also saw us progress some purchases to better support our clean firefighter initiatives, with the brigade now working hard to limit hostile contaminants and potential carcinogens from our vehicles and station.

‼️ In other, somewhat devastating news, it’s time for Eddy Tore, aka Ed to stop hiding behind his Nom De plume… Having written over 200 editions of the Weekly “Westy”, a heap of other social media releases, arranging a few videos and doing a heap of posts & shares. It was me, Current (retiring) Captain Greg “Hog” Judson. As we move toward the end of my tenure on the 30th June, after 5 years as captain, I’d like to say a big thank you to the fans, friends and followers that have got behind the “Westy”. It has been onerous at times, but I have enjoyed keeping you all informed of our adventures (even if it was a donut 🍩week) and our progress here at West Nowra.
Next Monday will be my last ever Weekly “Westy”. What the future holds for the “Westy” is somewhat unknown after that. With a new brigade executive and command team in place, I’m, sure they will do their best to keep you informed, maybe not as religiously of a Monday night, but there will be something.
Hey, what about we get a few more page followers in the next week… we are just a few short of 4K, and I’d love to hit that mark before I go…. Cheers, Greg (aka Hog, Ed, Eddy)

15/06/2026

The Weekly “Westy” #201 15/06/2026
G’day Fans and Followers and welcome to yet another edition of the Weekly Westy.
This week has seen us in response to just 1 incident call
🔥 Saturday 7:35pm. We were dispatched to a reported grass fire at Mundamia. Witness reports stated that it looked like persons unknown were lighting fires with petrol. On arrival our crews were unable to initially spot any going fires, however after closer inspection found the remnants of a small rubbish fire within a hole in the rocks. This was the ideal opportunity for 1 of our newly qualified firefighters to get familiar with using a knapsack. (Obviously not the levels of excitement he was hoping for at his first job 😁)

Even with a lack of incidents we were busy regardless.
Tuesday: As part of the National Thank A First Responder Day, ourselves, along with NSW SES Nowra Unit, Marine Rescue Shoalhaven & NSW RFS - Shoalhaven Operational Support, held a mini open day for students from Nowra East Public School within the compound of the Shoalhaven Emergency Operations Centre. The students from the three support classes had a great day interacting with the joint emergency services.
Tuesday: We had our usual monthly meeting, doing all those droll old administrative things… Essential, but not exciting.
Wednesday: The Rotary Club, hosted the the Shoalhaven Emergency Services Community Awards (SESCA) for 2026. One of our firefighters, Joseph Fernon was nominated by the Royal Australian Navy under the defence category. Joey, not just being selected as a finalist, went on to take out awards for the RAN Community Volunteer of the year, but also the Australian Defence Organisation Community Volunteer of the year. Congratulations to Joseph “Joey” Fernon on achieving recognition of his efforts in the community.
Saturday: We undertook the assessment of 4 new recruit firefighters across the day, bolstering our crew numbers. These 4 new “Probies” can now actively participate in all brigade incidents and activities as their learning really begins. Congratulations.

08/06/2026

The Weekly “Westy” #200 08/06/2026
G’day fans, followers, fireys, friends, families, factions and fanatics. Welcome to the 200th edition of the Weekly “Westy”, which we will start off with a little history. Back in August 2021 we started releasing “news” stories on an ad-hoc basis to our humble little follower base of 365 people. In febuary 2022, we started producing a somewhat regular weekly “news” summary of our activities. On the 8th August 2022 was when we got creative and named our little weekly blurb the Weekly “Westy”. This week sees our 200th edition going out to 3953 followers and a total exposure of 14,800 people last week… not bad for a little brigade blurb!! (What about you all like and follow our page.. Tell a friend to do the same.. let's get 4000 followers for next week!)

Anyway, what have we been up to this week? 3 incident calls were received by the brigade.
🔥 Wednesday 10:11pm. We were dispatched to a car fire at Parma. On arrival crews located a number of piles of tyres being illegally destroyed by fire. These were quickly extinguished and crews returned to station.
💨 Saturday 3:49pm. We were paged for a smoke in the vicinity call at Cambewarra. As it sometimes happens, we were unable to field a crew, but other group 1 stations did attend the incident.
🔥 Sunday 8:44pm. We were attached to a reported bushfire at Falls Creek. Just as the crew opened the roller doors we took a stop on the job….

For training last week, we enjoyed an inter-agency familiarity night. We had a visit from NSW Ambulance. One of our brigade officers, who is also an ambulance paramedic arranged to bring the vehicle for our perusal. We frequently assist NSW Ambulance at all sorts of incidents and having an increased awareness of what their life saving devices are called and where they are stored on the ambulance gives us a better ability to assist them in the provision of patient care.

Cheers. Ed

01/06/2026

The Weekly “Westy” #199 01/06/2026
G’day fans, friends and followers, welcome to another edition of the “Westy”. This week we are sitting right on the doorstep of our 200th edition your favourite weekly fire fix..
If there is anything you would like us to highlight in edition 200, please let us know, Ed.

This week saw us in receipt of only 2 incident calls.
🚗 Tuesday 1:56pm. We were responded to a Motor Vehicle Crash at Nowra Hill. On arrival the affected vehicle had been removed from the road, but the aftermath remained spread over the southbound lanes. A quick sweep and a handful of absorbent powder and the crew was homeward bound.
🔥 Sunday 4:55pm. We were dispatched to a reported structure fire at Bolong. On initial contact to our control centre, we received a stop call on the job.

In other activities this week, Tuesday night saw a combination of vehicle/equipment maintenance activities and our Breathing Apparatus operators undertaking competency maintenance. The BA crews were set an obstacle course within our multi-function room and hallways to keep their skills on point. The indoor activity was chosen due to the rain.
Saturday saw us delivering Firefighter (FF1-2) training to 3 of our new recruits, developing their skills to soon join us in the field.

25/05/2026

The Weekly “Westy” #198 25/05/2026
G’day again followers, friends & fans, welcome to another edition of the “Westy”, the tales of the best in the west….of Nowra anyway!
This week has been one of those weeks where our volunteers availabilities just hasn’t lined up with the incident calls. The reality is sometimes we just can’t get a crew (Maybe you could help us fill that void? Do you have weekday availability? Do you want to train with and be part of a great team of people? Do you want to assist your community? Maybe joining up is something to think about!!)
Anyway:
🚨Friday 5:42am. Paged for an alarm sounding at Mundamia. Unfortunately we couldn’t field a team, but the incident was attended by brigades from surrounding villages.
📟 Friday 10:20am Paged for a spillage at Cambewarra. Again we couldn’t field a crew, but other local RFS stations did attend
🚨 Friday 9:33pm Paged for an alarm sounding at Mundamia. In a “bad things happen in 3’s day, we again couldn’t field a team, but surrounding brigades stepped up.
🔥 Saturday 4:01pm we were responded to assist +R with a bushfire at Worrigee but took a stop on the call. (with 8 crew in response too)

In other news, Tuesday night training was focussed on Motor Vehicle incidents, with some 14 members taking part in the exercises and some awesome acting by the “casualties” to make things a little more realistic.

Have you thought of joining us here at West Nowra? You might be able to fill that void!

There are many reasons to join the NSW RFS. You may want to protect your families, your friends, your home and assets, your community, and your way of life.

18/05/2026

The Weekly “Westy” #197 18/05/2026
G’day followers, welcome to another edition of the “Westy”
This week saw us shake the donut curse 🍩, with a number of incident calls
🔥Wednesday 7:24am. We responded to a car fire at Cambewarra along with Broughton Vale - Berry Rural Fire Brigade, Crews also had to manage a small hydrocarbon spillage to make the area safe.
📟Wednesday 2:24pm. We were dispatched to a reported spillage at Nowra Hill but took a stop message on route as Fire and Rescue NSW Station 440 Shoalhaven had rendered the area safe.
🔥Thursday 9:58am. We were responded to a gas bottle fire at Currarong. We were well and truly on the way when we again took a stop message for the call from Culburra Beach Rural Fire Brigade whom were first to arrive at the incident
🚨Thursday 8:42pm. We were alerted to an alarm sounding at Mundamia. On arrival crews found the cause to be someone had been enjoying a long hot shower, which tricked the fire alarm.
🚨Sunday 12:30am. We were responded to an Automatic Fire Alarm in a commercial premises in Yerriyong, along with Fire and Rescue NSW Station 440 Shoalhaven & NSW Rural Fire Service St Georges Basin Brigade. With no fire located the alarm was reset and all crews returned to station.

This last week also saw us hosting our monthly general meeting, where the business side of brigade life is managed, including the awarding of a number of training certificates before swinging into the Annual General Meeting. In the brief recess we enjoyed a wonderfull spread of delicious treats made by our catering officer, Jodie.
The AGM saw all of the brigades positions opened for election, with the field officer roles being acknowledged and set for commencement on the 1st July. With Captain Greg Judson electing to not run for captaincy into next year after 5 years in the top job, our current Senior Deputy Captain, Nath Inwood was elected to the role. Mark Massie was elected as the Senior Deputy Captain and Aaron Byerley being elected to the Deputy Captain 1 role. Glen Griffiths, Andrew Munro, John Shadlow, Shane Spinks & Greg Judson were elected as deputy Captains.
Our administrative role elections saw the return of Micheal Agland as President, David Truscott as Secretary, John Shadlow as Treasurer and Rhianon Wilson as the Members representative.
A number of other supporting roles were also filled at the AGM.
I'm sure all the "Westy" fans wish them all the best as they undertake their new roles

To top off the week, a small crew attended for Sunday Duty, giving the station and surrounds a clean up and doing a couple of little jobs around the station that needed finalising

11/05/2026

The Weekly “Westy” #196 11/05/2026
G’day fans and followers, welcome this week's "diet" edition of the “Westy”.
🍩 This week see us with a big, rotund zero in the incident count…. Yep that Donut is back 🍩🍩🍩
The only thing we have to brag about this week is the training session on Tuesday evening. Crews undertook a series of desktop exercise scenarios, based on a fire in our area which was presented first as an Autumn fire, then as a Summer fire under extreme conditions. Our crews undertook various mapping and fire behaviour modelling tasks to ascertain which strategies and tactics could be applied to fire’s suppression.

🔥 A little reminder… If you wish to conduct a pile burn in the Rural Fire District, You must tell all your neighbours and the RFS at least 24hrs before lighting up.

04/05/2026

The Weekly “Westy” #195 04/05/2026

G’day again followers and friends, welcome to another edition of the “Westy” on this special day… Why is today special?
Well, if you are a Star Wars fan, it’s Star Wars day.. May the Fourth be with you…
If you are a Firefighter or a fan of firefighter, today is St Florians Day also known as International Firefighters' Day. St Florian is the patron saint of firefighters worldwide. The day holds special significance in the fire fighting fraternity, being associated with remembrance ceramics, award ceremonies and special events being held on “our” day.

This week has seen us receive 4 activation requests for incidents.
🚗Monday 11:16am. We were called to assist with a car fire at Jaspers Brush. We did take a stop on this call as Broughton Vale - Berry Rural Fire Brigade arrived to find an esky lid jammed under the vehicle causing the smoke, which was subsequently dealt with..
🔥Tuesday 07:18am. We were paged for a grass fire at Bolong, but as it happens sometimes we were unable to raise a crew. The incident was dealt with by other local brigades.
🔥 Friday 9:29am. We were called to a reported bushfire at Calalla. This call sourced from smoke in the vicinity due to the sizeable Hazard Reduction being conducted in the Currambene State Forest by Forestry Corp. we did take a stop on this call after Culburra Beach Rural Fire Brigade arrived on scene.
🔥Friday 6:07pm. Whilst returning from a Hazard Reduction, our Cat1 was retasked to respond to a pile burn at Worrigee. On arrival crews found a pile burn being conducted in compliance with the required notices and conditions. Taking no action crews headed back to station after that little extension to an already long day.

In other activities for the week.
✅Tuesday Evening was our regular maintenance night, where the trucks are checked over in detail and all the equipment is checked 7 serviced to ensure it’s 100% ready to go. There was also some introductory training for some of our new recruits.
⚠️Friday. We provided a tanker and crew to assist with the Williams Hazard Reduction burn at St Georges basin.
🚨Saturday evening, after giving the tankers a good scrub up, we attended the Beyond Blue truck show next door at the Racecourse. Our team proudly showed off our trucks and encouraged the kids to have a climb in. We also stole the show in the “light up” with some flashy red and blue lights!!
⚠️Sunday. We again provided a tanker and crew to assist with the Scout Camp HR at Bangalee

❓We also had the honour of having our cat1 being imaged by a player in the online game Roblox.(I don’t really understand either. Ed) This was highlighted on a satirical page focussing on firefighters across the country.. check out the image in the pics below. The likeness is unbelievable!

27/04/2026

The Weekly “Westy” #194 27/04/2026
G’day again fans and followers, welcome to another edition of the “Westy”, the chronicles of the hottest firey’s in the west😊

🔥Monday 6:56pm. We were dispatched along with NSW Rural Fire Service St Georges Basin Brigade to a reported Pile Fire at Yerriyong. On arrival our crew found a well managed pile burn with plenty of water and machinery on site to deal with it… Plus an active Burn Notice.. All Good with this one, back home they went.
🚗Tue 9:59pm. We were called along with Cambewarra Rural Fire Brigade to a reported car fire / explosions at Mundamia. On arrival our crews found a car totally destroyed by fire.
⚠️ Wed 7:30am. A page was put out for crews to assist with a search, however a stop was put on the request at 8:10am as the missing person had been found.
🚜 Wed 2:59pm. We were responded to Kangaroo Valley for a machinery fire, But with the prompt response and extinguishment by Kangaroo Valley Volunteer Rural Fire Brigade, we took a stop on the way
🔥 Wed 6:44pm. We were called for a reported grassfire at Worrigee. On Arrival crew found a compliant and notified burn in progress, requiring no further action.
🔥 Fri 5:55pm. Were were responded to a reported grass fire at Nowra Hill. On arrival we located a number of piles alight that were in compliance with the burn notification.
🔥 Fri 6:47pm. We received a call to an unknown fire east of Nowra. In conjunction with Fire and Rescue NSW Station 440 Shoalhaven, our crews ended up at Terara where a small pile was located in the dying stages. Appropriate guidance was given to the land owner for future burning.
🔥 Saturday 8:12pm. We were dispatched to a tree alight at Meroo Meadow. On Arrival crews found a small well prepared pile. All the neighbours had been notified but unfortunately the RFS wasn’t… Please use the burn notification tools at www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/notify

Please understand if we get a 000 call to a location that doesn't match your burn notice (exactly!), we are compelled to attend... because imagine if it was something else on fire.. If you have given the RFS & your neighbours the required 24 hrs + notice, everything is sweet.

This week has seen us undertake brigade training on Tuesday evening. Crews undertook exercises in various bushfire and urban interface environments where they were required to select and deploy appropriate hose streams and water supply options to address different fire impact scenarios.
On Saturday, members of the West Nowra Brigade attended ANZAC ceremonies at both Bomaderry and Nowra, laying wreaths in memory and appreciation of the sacrifices made by our armed forces.

21/04/2026

The Weekly “Westy” #193 21/04/2026 “Late Edition”
G’day followers. Who Remembers the Daily Mirror??? The afternoon newspaper or the “Late Edition”… well, we pay homage to it this week, with a late edition too (I was a bit 🤮, Ed)
Anyway, enough reminiscing of a bygone era, let's blab about our week here in the West.
🚨 Friday 12:16am. Called for an Automatic Fire Alarm (AFA) activation at Yerriyong
🔥 Friday 12:39pm responded to a reported Bushfire at Meroo Meadow which ended up being in Bomaderry and under a Fire+Rescue permit.
🔥 Sunday ~11:00am. We were dispatched via radio & MDT (Mobile Data Terminal) to a reported fire at Broughton Vale, but took a stop once the crew from Beaumont Rural Fire Brigade confirmed it was smoke from a notified burn.

Tuesday Evening saw us hosting our monthly meeting, doing the “Business” side of the brigade. However we had a visit from Matt & Grub from the Nowra Rodeo Association who kindly passed on a donation in thanks for the assistance we gave them for the 2 recent rodeo events. Thanks Guys.

www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/notify is the web address to advise of you burn in a rural fire district. Please ensure that the notification is submitted and your neighbours have been notified a minimum of 24hrs beforehand.
📛So what if you have done all the right things and notified the RFS & Neighbours, then a fire truck pulls up at your place?? Firstly, don't stress, you have done the right thing, it's all good.
What may have happened is a passer by may have called 000 and reported a fire at an address that didn't match yours..
Our dispatch systems treat that call as a potential new fire incident and we respond units until we can be sure... It's better to be sure, to be sure, to be sure 🍀