Building a bright new career

The diversity of tasks and responsibilities as a firefighter is the biggest change James Wright expects from his new career. 

James was a bricklayer for most of his working life, which he explains was quite repetitive.

“With CFA, I expect every day will be different and there’s a strong emphasis on training and maintaining skills, which will definitely help keep me motivated to keep developing mu career as a firefighter,” he said.

“I became interested in becoming a firefighter after hearing friends talk about it. After following it up, it became something I wanted to make my career.”

James is taking one step at a time in establishing his firefighting career.

“For the time being, I’m not looking too far into the future. I focused on fitting into my new fire brigade and station, and doing a good job as a new recruit,” he said.

“My short-term goal is to get through my next levels of training and gaining experience to become a qualified firefighter.”

Graduating on Monday (12 December), James will become a member of the Hoppers Crossing Fire Brigade and living in Macedon means he won't need to relocate.

“I’m glad I won’t need to move but looking forward to learning more about the community in Hoppers Crossing,” he said.

“I know it’s a fast-growing area and still on the edge of urban and rural. Being a big and still growing area, I expect it to provide a busy work environment.”

Read more about Monday’s graduation here.

Read about recruit firefighters who graduated on 30 November:

Emre Altiparmak

Daniel Pearce

Vanessa Willams

Natalie Debeljuh

Zoe Wathen 

Author: CFA Media