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Stawell CFA volunteers Jason Willis and Molly Gray have made a good tag team in supporting the massive firefighting operation in NSW.
The parents were among hundreds of volunteers from across Victoria who joined the interstate campaign, another example of the strength and importance of the state’s volunteer CFA system.
Molly was part of the first district strike team and Jason later joined a separate team, helping with strategic backburning and community support.
Molly returned on Saturday for a second deployment and Jason will return at the start of December to help for a second time.
This was their first interstate mission but the parents are experienced in local and regional firefighting.
Jason followed his father into the CFA and Molly joined about six years ago. They are both junior leaders in the Stawell brigade and Jason was recently elected District 16 Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria (VFBV) State Councillor.
Their daughter, Myah, has just moved from being a junior to a senior CFA volunteer while they have another daughter too young to join but already keen.
VFBV CEO Adam Barnett said the commitment of volunteers to help in times of crisis should be applauded, along with the support of their families and workplaces.
“Across Victoria in recent weeks hundreds of volunteers have gone to New South Wales to help and in each case, they’ve had families, partners, friends and workplaces pitching in to assist,” Mr Barnett said.
“For every volunteer on the fire ground there are many people at home keeping life on track. This is what makes our CFA surge capacity such a successful force.”
Jason said he and Molly were happy to support the interstate teams. “We have good family support and my mother-in-law was able to look after the girls while we were away,” he said.
Molly was part of the District 15 and 16 strike team working on CFA appliances while Jason was part of an 18-member strike team working alongside NSW Rural Fire Service volunteers doing strategic burns near Kempsey.
“We took all our directions from the local incident controller,” he said.
“It was a massive fire and they need a lot of support so that’s why we’ve put our hands up to go back again.”
“District 16 has a great reputation for assisting others. We have the Grampians in our region so we’re grateful for any help that comes to us and always willing to put our hand up to return the favour.”
Jason said Victorian volunteers did valuable work and integrated into the community. “We bought our supplies from the local supermarket and ate at the local RSL with the other strike teams; we were working with the community,” he said.
Learn more about CFA’s world-respected surge capacity on the VFBV website.
