For Rosalyn Smith, volunteering with her Country Fire Service ‘family’ is part of what gives life meaning.
Always drawn to emergency situations, she signed up for the Hahndorf CFS Brigade about eight and a half years ago, shortly after immigrating to Australia from South Africa.
She’s since fought some of the region’s worst fires, including Cudlee Creek and Cherry Gardens and, as a volunteer with the Red Cross as well, has witnessed the human side of tragedies much more profoundly than she otherwise may have.
“We do what we do because we enjoy it, but at the same time, what’s happening is humans are suffering,” she says.
“… I specifically remember at Cudlee Creek … towards the end of the day … we arrived a at a house and as we got there a man pulled up in a car and he got out of the car and just watched and saw his family home burn and there was nothing we could do, there was nothing he could do.
“I remember just standing there with him for about 10 or 15 minutes and we just stood together and we just spoke and I thought ‘there’s nothing more that I can do but to try to spend a bit of time with him’ and then we’ve got to hop back in the truck, obviously, and carry on with what we do.
“Those are the impacts that stick out to me.
“I can still see the faces of the people.”
When she first joined the brigade, her main goal was to immerse herself in her new community and rebuild some of the social connections she’d left behind in South Africa.
And she’s never looked back.
Within weeks of joining she had taken on the roll of admin coordinator and a few years after that took over as brigade captain.
Along the way she trained as a police officer and now balances that fulltime job with captaining the brigade that has become her “family”.
I love it, and I love my community, I love my members here, so for me it’s a worthwhile sacrifice
“I love it, and I love my community, I love my members here, so for me it’s a worthwhile sacrifice,” she says.
She balances her high intensity roles by making a conscious effort to step out for short periods of time, to go camping or exploring, walking or hiking.
But for her, volunteering gives life purpose.
“The brigade has been around 76 years,” she says.
“If you think that for 76 years volunteers have been on call 24/7, 365 (days) to protect this community, how amazing is that?
“That’s just such an amazing thing to think that these people that have given of themselves so much to protect their community and beyond and to be a part of that is just amazing.”
