Those are the words of Mersey SES Unit’s Lee Baumback who received the Tasmania Fire Service’s Chief Officer’s Special Award on Saturday. 

More than 300 SES and TFS volunteers were recognised for their work during the 2016 floods at the Fire and Emergency Services conference held at the Country Club cassino. 

The Latrobe Volunteer Fire Brigade was also commended. 

Mr Baumback said the volunteers were not in the unit for recognition. 

“We get constant thanks from the people that we help, and nine times out of ten that’s all we need. We don’t need any awards to know that we’re doing that,” he said. 

“We did what we normally do which is to look after our community. If we’re needed, we’re there.” 

He said the night started when he got a call to monitor the depth gauge on the Latrobe Bridge. 

“I just monitored it for four to six hours. I didn’t leave until about 4am in the morning. Then we got the call to go out there about 8am because conditions got worse,” he recalled.

“[We] did voluntary door knocks and that was probably for four to six hours. Some of the places were already flooded and I was almost up to my chest in flood waters.”

Latrobe Brigade chief Michael Parker said his crew said “they had to do something” when they saw the waters. 

“They went and got the vehicles and went and did what we normally do … They went and saved people,” Mr Parker said.  

“This is no big deal really because we like helping people out.”

TFS’s acting chief officer Jeremy Smith said it was a pleasure for him to present the awards to the two units. 

“When I read the citiation for this event, I had no hesitation in presenting this award to those two SES and TFS crews,” he said. 

“They rescued a number of lives which may have been lost if they weren’t there for their community.”

He said crews bypassed standard operating procedures to get the job done.

“They saw the opportunity to do the right thing and wanted to make a situation that was out of their control and put some control around it,” Mr Parker said.