Seven Werribee Fire Brigade members were recently awarded a CFA Unit Citation for Service for their quick-thinking and intuitive actions which led to saving the life of a local resident.
The collective honour recognised the outstanding acts of service by brigade members Sean Cross, Joshua Redman, Paul Ryan, Michael Wells, Brendon Gill, John Ryan and Cameron Ward.
In the early hours of 18 February 2025, the crew were returning to the fire station from a response when they noticed a large plume of smoke and orange glow in the distance.
Werribee Fire Brigade Captain Michael Wells said upon promptly locating the source, the members arrived at a fully involved structure fire and immediately commenced extinguishment. operations.
“As they conducted normal fire operations, one of our firefighters Brendon Gill noticed a person within the structure during their initial search,” Michael said.
“Without hesitation he executed an extraction of the person from the window of the burning structure and gained assistance from other members.”
As no alarm had been raised by the community to triple zero yet, the brigade paged another crew to assist them.
Michael said he was extremely proud of this brigade members and their early detection and observation.
“They used strong detective work to investigate what was going on as soon as they saw it and their prompt actions allowed a person to leave the scene unscathed,” Michael said.
“We would’ve been behind the eight ball otherwise waiting for someone to report it and the fire could have become more established.
“They are a reasonably young crew, but well trained and they operated well above their capability, it was fantastic. Everything they did was great.”
Michael was part of the second crew and assisted his Incident Controller Lt Josh Redman on scene as Operations Officer and praised his leadership.
“The recognition came as a surprise to them, but they took it in their stride. They’re incredibly proud of belonging to CFA and to a brigade and I think it is great we acknowledge them for the work they’ve done,” Michael said.
“It was about the team coming together as one and achieving an outcome and in this case it went towards saving a life. They did everything they were trained to do, everything they were supposed to do and they did it exceptionally well.”
CFA Deputy Chief Officer Garry Cook AFSM attended the brigade’s annual award dinner earlier in June to present each member with their medal and to thank them for their bravery.
“Thanks to the vigilance and initiative of these members, a life was successfully saved,” Garry said.
“Their exemplary leadership, teamwork and discipline reflect the highest standards of the spirit of CFA and we thank them for their dedication to protecting and supporting the Victorian community.”