A Christmas Eve tradition, the Santa Claus Run, has become a crucial way of connecting with the community for Waterfall Rural Fire Brigade, which is facing a hot, dry summer and a volunteer shortage.
After a scorching Saturday on December 9, when thankfully there were no call-outs, I met station captain Glenn Fraser on a cool, drizzly Sunday morning. It was the perfect weather for the team to get their trucks ready for hose-training drills that afternoon at Heathcote’s interface.
While Dave, Ben, Michael, Matthew and Luke prepped next door, Glenn and I sat at a table with some of this month’s most important equipment: a box of tinsel.
“I remember before I joined, people would say, ‘Oh, you want to join?’ or ‘You want to know something? Come up and see us on a Sunday.’ But there's that big barrier there – the gates, and you'd think, 'Do I really want to walk through there?'," Glenn said.
“What I've tried to do is get us more involved in the community itself; go the other way and have us do things out there.
“The classic example is the Santa Claus Run on Christmas Eve. We take Santa Claus around town – there's only two or three streets, but it takes two and a half hours – and previously everyone would be in the truck and we'd drive through and throw some lollies. Whereas one of the changes that I made was… the only people in the truck are the ones driving it, everyone else walks.
“So we walk and we greet people, and one of the guys down the road has a sausage sizzle and he feeds us, and people are donating stuff, and it's a really enjoyable time. We just get out there and mix it up with the locals.”
Glenn joined the NSW Rural Fire Service 14 years ago, after waiting for his children to reach their teenage years. He blazed through the training courses to “make up for lost time” and took on the captaincy earlier this year.
Glenn is motivated by a desire to give back to the tight-knit Waterfall community and protect the homes of the neighbours and friends who, like him, are surrounded by bushland.
The last threat to his own house came in the 2001 Black Christmas bushfires.
“I wasn't a member then, but I remember it was Christmas Day and I sent everyone away up to the relatives and I stayed as long as I could… but then the police said I had to get out,” Glenn said.
“The next day I was working at Tradies Club at Gymea – I was the operations manager there – and we turned into a refuge for people that been forced out of their homes.
“Because I was operations manager, I was running the effort there and we were providing meals to the firefighters. Because it was a long weekend, we couldn't get anything in, we were running out of food for the kitchen, so I was on the radio asking for people to donate fruit and veggies.
“That went on for a few days – and actually, I've never thought of it before, but that probably sowed the seed too, because I joined not too long after that.”
In 2021, Glenn took a left-field job at Sutherland’s Olsen’s Funerals, a role he was apprehensive about at first but has grown to enjoy so much that he’ll see it out until retirement.
“We deal with people at their worst, [at] the worst time in their lives, almost, and sometimes you can't make a connection, but usually you can, and it can be really enjoyable,” he said.
In many ways, being there for people at their lowest points is a familiar situation for firefighters.
During the worst of 2019-20’s Black Summer campaign, from early September to mid-January, Glenn estimates that Waterfall had crews out almost every day, deployed to dozens of fire fronts that threatened whole communities, from Tenterfield to Bermagui.
Come the eventual rains of early 2020, the exhaustion and the relief felt by the 20-odd active members of the brigade was palpable. But with the country again expected to swelter through fire season, that relief is short-lived for Waterfall, which has struggled with membership numbers and fundraising.
“Because it's such a small population in Waterfall, it's hard to draw members,” Glenn said.
“I'm getting older, [our] legends are getting older, so we need a succession plan. We've got to keep bringing people up, keep encouraging them – that's the key.
“We then need to fundraise as well – all the brigades fundraise. It's relatively easy for them compared to us because they're all in big towns with lots of retail outlets and industry… so they can rock up to their local club or pub or shop and say, ‘Hey, can you help us fundraise?’
“For us at Waterfall, there's nothing. I mean, we love it that way, but there's very little commercial activity to draw on… so it's really hard for us to raise funds, and we need to raise funds in order to get specialist equipment.”
The Waterfall brigade might need more members, but it’s not short on enthusiasm.
“What sets us apart? I think it's just how we treat our people, and we're passionate about what we do,” Glenn said.
“Ultimately, everyone here works as a team and gets on. I think you have to; I think it's really important.
“We’re all from different walks of life. Here, we've got myself with my background, we've got police officers, we've got teachers, we've got accountants, we've got business owners, we've got all sorts of people. It's a real eclectic mix and I love spending time with these people here.
“If I can get more locals involved, that would make me so happy.”
To contact the station directly to learn about the ways in which you can volunteer, email Glenn at waterfall.rfb.captain@gmail.com.
