As more than 1000 people converged on Warrnambool for the weekend’s junior fire brigade championships, the Warrnambool team is hoping the event will revive interest in the sport.
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With three of its nine-member team being lost to the senior ranks of the brigade, junior development coach Simone Kinross is hoping to attract more 11 to 17-year-olds to fill the gap.
“You don’t have to be the best sportsmen to do this activity, you just need to be able to play in a team,” Mrs Kinross said.
“It’s about giving kids something to do for kids who are not into football and netball, and being part of a community.”
Mrs Kinross said she first joined the junior brigade when she was 11 and has been involved for more than three decades as either a competitor, judge or coach.
She said many of those who join and compete in the junior ranks have gone on to be firefighters in brigades.
State Junior Urban Championships organising committee chairman Malcolm Bishop said that 77 teams of four competed in the weekend’s event at Friendly Societies Park. Mr Bishop said that despite the fantastic turnout to the event, which was hailed a success, history showed that interest in the competition was “dying off”.
“In 1992 we had about 70 teams here. It was the same number of teams but perhaps a drop in brigades,” he said.
Mr Bishop said that while there were more than 70 teams competing this year, there were only about 50 brigades whereas 26 years ago there would have been about 70 brigades.
“I think it’s just like all sporting things these days, there’s just so much on offer now with your basketball, netball, cricket, tennis and all that, fire brigade we’re competing,” he said.
He said he hoped that the weekend’s event – which brought people from all over the state and one team from Western Australia – would inspire more people to get involved.
He said teams competed in two age groups – under 14s and under 17s.
“They would be trying to complete a task in the quickest time – set a hydrant in the ground, draw water from it through a hose, hit a disc on the main track,” he said.
“On the marshal track, same thing, join hoses together in the right sequence.”
Victorian Emergency Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley, who attended the event, praised the CFA program.
"The juniors are just amazing," he said.
"The number that marched up the track for the opening was refreshing to see."
Tatura A won the 45th Junior State Urban Fire Brigade Championships which was held on Saturday and Sunday - the fifth time it has ever been held in Warrnambool.
