By Tania Phillips
The brand-new Broadwater Amiens Rural Fire Service Shed was officially opened on Saturday 6 August after an almost two-decade campaign by the brigade and the local community.
Broadwater Amiens Brigade Secretary Sally Rowen said the new shed was a “silver lining” following the wildfires of 2019 and would play an important role for the group in future emergencies.
“For a very long time a couple of brigades in our area have been trying to build brigade sheds,” she said.
Broadwater Amiens Brigade is part of the South Region in the Rural Fire Service. They are one of 13 brigades in the area and are part of the Darling Downs group.
“Here in the Stanthorpe group, there are a few of us that haven’t ever had sheds so we have been trying for a very, very long time to get a Brigade shed to store equipment and trucks and use for training,” Sally said.
“In 2008 we started looking for a piece of land and eventually in 2018-19, we got our land so we then had to start the paperwork process.”
Sally said that after the fires in 2019, they received a lot of public donations.
“The process to put the shed in place started in 2020 and here we are in 2022 and it’s happened,” she said.
Up until now the trucks and equipment have been stored at members’ properties but the new facility is expected to give Broadwater Amiens a focal point both during emergencies and on a regular basis.
“There is still a little fine tuning to do,” Sally said. “But essentially we have an amazing facility which we will use for training sessions and it will be an incident control in the event of a wildfire on this northern side.”
“We’ve always had to go to the group shed in town or to Ballandean which is 20 minutes south of here – they were the only ones that were equipped.
“In the event of a wildfire, you have got to be in a fairly close vicinity,” Sally said. “To have one on this North Western side is fantastic.”
The official opening – attended by brigade members past and present and members of the community – was conducted by the Qld Fire and Emergency Services Minister Mark Ryan along with QFES assistant commissioner Mark Stuart, Acting Darling Downs Region Inspector Craig Clifford as well other Rural Fire Service officials.
