Broome SES boosts its ranks

Broome’s State Emergency Service recruitment drive has been a success, with the emergency service adding 10 more volunteers to its ranks.

Broome SES manager Nathan Donald said this year’s drive had been the most successful yet.

“We do a recruitment drive every year alongside the other Department of Fire & Emergency services and this is the second year we’ve had the February recruitment drive,” he said.

“Last year we had five to 10 expressions of interest and and this year we’ve had 15 expressions of interest and of that about 10 have made their way down to the unit at various stages to check us out and have a look at what we do.”

Mr Donald said Broome SES can take on as many volunteers as they like and there were few prerequisites.

“We can take pretty much anyone as long as they can pass a police check,” he said.

“We’ve got a job for for everyone.”

Broome SES now has a total of 20 volunteers to respond to callouts thanks to new recruits but fortunately, according to Mr Donald, it has been a quieter year than usual for them.

“We were quite fortunate with Broome being quiet in the tourist season but with the travel restrictions easing I expect to get some more callouts as tourists come into the region,” he said.

“During the dry season, we get our rescue type callouts, where it can be anything from someone’s fallen down a cliff and hurt themselves, all the way through to missing person searches.

“During the wet season we get a variety of calls which are usually storm damage related, a tree has fallen on a house or flooding, all that sort of stuff.”

Mr Donald said one of the most important things Broome SES did was to bolster local fire services when the fire season starts.

“Here in the in the Kimberley, we actively support the fire brigade, the bush fire brigade and the volunteer fire and rescue with their fire callouts so when they get a big fire we’re out there assisting them logistically as well as with welfare and communications,” he said.