Mt Barker volunteer firefighter Kathleen Western has been part of a volunteer brigade for more than a decade, fighting fires at home and overseas.
She grew up on a farm in the Great Southern, and said being part of the local brigade was expected of young people growing up on the land.
“I grew up on a farm near Mt Barker, and it was a given thing that you should join the local brigade to have the skills to look after your own property and your neighbours, it was just what everyone did,” she said.
Ms Western attended her first firefighting job as a volunteer 12 years ago and “loved it”, and has been part of a brigade ever since.
She has volunteered for six deployments outside of WA to locations including New South Wales in 2019 and Victoria in February of 2025, and to Canada in 2024 with her partner and fellow Mt Barker volunteer Kevin Bransby, to aid bushfire efforts of local crews.
Ms Western said she was not dubious at all to take on her first deployment, and said she would consider deployments highlights of her volunteering career.
“You learn how to adapt to a new area and a new environment. But fires burn the same wherever you go, so you might not be familiar with the place you’re in but you know your craft and your training so you’re prepared when you get there,” she said.
“Every deployment I’ve been on was such an incredible experience, you’re going to places you probably otherwise would never have gone and you’re going there to help people.
“When we’re there, sometimes people are having the worst day of their life, it can be confronting for sure but so rewarding to be able to be there for people and provide some hope or help them out or ease their pain.
“Even if it’s just giving someone a break, you know you’re doing some good in the world.”
To Ms Western, every situation is a learning opportunity, and she said brigades become a “second family” and lean on each other in challenging incidents.
“We treat every situation and every person we come into contact with with the same amount of respect, and you’re aware that it can be very confronting, but at the end of the day you just have to take things as they come and control what you can control,” she said.
“Volunteers are absolutely essential to regional WA because there’s hundreds or thousands of kilometres between career fire stations, so we’re it for a lot of these incidents.”