General News
7 June, 2025
Fire Brigade to have new captain
Warracknabeal Fire Brigade's Cameron Whelan has announced that he will step down from captain at their recent annual general meeting at the Palace Hotel.
Effective from July 1, Warracknabeal's Brigade Management Team will consist of Captain Russell Brown, 1st Lieutenant James Haworth, 2nd Lieutenant Cameron Whelan, 3rd Lieutenant Clinton Jonasson, 4th Lieutenant Declan Whelan, secretary Sharon Brown and treasurer Kerrie Baxter.
During the AGM, Captain Whelan spoke about the role the brigade played in the Little Desert National Park and the Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park fires throughout December 2024 to February this year with many younger members experiencing their first strike team deployment.
children waiting bravely at home, the ones who stayed behind for coverage and the people that walked away from their businesses to get on the truck,” he said.
During this time, brigade members were exposed to a new world of logistics at the Horsham Incident Control Centre (ICC) where they delivered vehicles and food, gathered resources and distributed them to different staging areas.
On the front line, Captain Whelan said tasks included extinguishing fires when it came out of the scrub and working along containment lines with asset protection.
“The best thing to come out of the fires was the community-focused approach and the local knowledge that was coming through to manage the fires from local brigade members and landholders," he said.