Joan Robson – Fighting Fires Her Way

Joan Robson would tell you that she is just an ordinary woman and mother. “There is nothing very special about me” she says. She is wrong.

Joan is the daughter of a farmer and a true country woman. She is a mother of 5, four sons and a daughter. She is grandmother to 12. She is a motherly sort of person that kids are always drawn to. She is a great cook and gardener.

You would be very wrong if you thought that is not all there is to her.

In her youth Joan was a light opera singer who was heard on radio and on stage. She even recorded her own record. She had a beautiful voice that would have led her to at least local fame. Instead she married and, as women did in those days, gave up her career to become a wife and mother.

As her children grew a little older Joan became involved in the Country Fire Authority where her husband was captain of the local brigade.

In those days the town in which they lived was quite small and most of the locals were farmers. The area was dissected by a highway and a railway line. There were fires lit by trains on one side and horrible car accidents on the other. It was the members of the CFA who got to fix and clean up both.

Joan became the communications officer for her local brigade. For the next 30 years she managed the radio communications between base and the fire trucks.

Summers were always hectic. Living in a drought prone area meant that summer always brought fires, some much bigger than others. Winters brought road fatalities as well as floods to deal with and it was not unusual to see Joan out there shovelling sand into bags so that local properties could be sandbagged to prevent flooding.

Joan was really put to the test during the 1969 fires which burnt out local towns, as well ad during the Ash Wednesday fires.

In 1969 she was home with her children, the eldest of whom was 9. Fires were raging in nearby towns, one of which was already totally destroyed. The day was hot and the smoke was so thick in the sky that the sun was a dim orange ball in the sky.. Breathing was difficult as the air was full of smoke.

Looking out of the window Joan saw a nearby paddock start to go brown. There was no flame, just a paddock suddenly burning brown. The fires had arrived in her town. She organised the local fire trucks to return from other fires to defend their home town and helped authorities to arrange a total evacuation of the town. Her knowledge of the area was essential in locating rural properties on roads that were unnamed or did not even show on the maps.

Joan remained behind in her home with the CFA radio while her children were evacuated and her husband fought with the other members of the brigade.

Joan will tell you that this is not the worst fear she has ever felt….

Because it was a farming community most men worked away from home and were not contactable in an emergency. That made it really difficult to find a crew to man the truck in an emergency. Eventually, with the permission of the CFA, her sons became crew members. They had to seek special permission because they were under age, but having grown up surrounded by the CFA they were well trained and sensible. Still, there was always a horrible fear when her husband and sons went off to fight fire.

One of the worst times was when she was manning the radio while the tanker was off fighting a fire in very tough terrain. She heard a crewman call “The fire is coming at us and ……” then there was nothing…….Silence…… The world stood still for a time but, having a job to do, she could not allow herself to panic. Luckily the truck eventually regained radio contact to report everyone safe.

It was not a life that most people would accept easily. Being the local communications base meant being tied to the township especially during the summers. There was no such thing as a holiday.

It meant being supporter and counsellor to her husband and sons as they dealt with the emotional impact of confronting death.  Attending serious car accidents or being in a search party for suicidal people brought them face-to-face with things unimaginable.  In those days there was no access to counselling so it fell to wives and other brigade members to help them work through it.

It also meant constant pressure to make sure that every detail was recorded and reported correctly. In an emergency situation , when not every operator can hear the others on the same frequency, messages were often garbled or interrupted by others. Getting a message wrong could mean sending a truck to the wrong location or sending it ill-equipped to deal with whatever emergency had occurred.

Joan would tell you that she was just one member of the brigade and just one person doing her bit to support the CFA. Yes, there were hundreds of people doing similar volunteer roles throughout Australia, but there are not many who have done it for such a sustained length of time. There are not many who have done it while knowing that the lives of her husband and sons were depending on her.

Australia is full of people like Joan. They are quiet and don’t talk about what they have done yet we would not be able to live so well without them.

Joan, you are an inspiring woman. Thank you for everything you have done for us.

Article by Anne Maybus of Clever Streak.  www.cleverstreak.com.au