'Significant skills deficit': State fire service losing experienced crews

The Productivity Commission's annual Report on Government Services, shows 4.9 per cent of the state's career firefighters left the Tasmania Fire Service (TFS) in 2022-23.

The national figure was 2.7 per cent.

The vast majority of firefighters in the state are also older than their colleagues interstate - 69 per cent of professional firefighters are older than 40 years old, compared to 63 per cent nationally.

The number of volunteer firefighters decreased from 3909 in 2021-22 to 3811 in 2022-23, and over the same period the number of career fighters shrank from 342 to 327 according to the report.

Tasmania placed last in confining fires to the room or object of origin, with crews containing 61.9 per cent of fires before they spread.

The next-worse state was Victoria at 66.4 per cent, and the national average was 76.3 per cent.

Police, Fire and Emergency Management Minister Felix Ellis said in aggregate, recruitment figures were better than they were a decade ago.

Mr Ellis said the ratio of volunteer firefighters to the general population was second only to New South Wales.

"Tasmania is again second in the nation when it comes to the number of firefighter volunteers at 820 per 100,000 people compared to the national average of 715," he said.

"Further, the number of Tasmanian career firefighters has increased by 12 per cent since 2013-14 to 327 in 2022-23.

"Since coming to Government in 2014 we have recruited 115 career firefighters, including 9 firefighters last year dedicated to our North-West Coast."

He said the Volunteer Support Unit, stood up with a $2.4 million investment, was working to recruit and train more volunteer firefighters and SES personnel - the latter group increasing its membership to 686 over the past decade.

Mr Ellis said government investment had paid off in other ways, as response times to structure fires statewide had dropped from 7.6 minutes in 2013-14 to 4.3 minutes in 2022-23.

For remote fires, that had dropped from 8.5 minutes to 2.4 minutes, excluding call times.

Industrial organiser with the United Firefighters Union of Australia Tasmania Branch Stephen McCallum said the TFS was in a bad way.

"TFS is known among the firefighting community for having the oldest vehicles and equipment," Mr McCallum said.

"Both career and volunteer firefighters struggle to get the training they need to effectively respond to incidents in their communities."

The union representative said most of the firefighters included in attrition rates had retired, which left the TFS facing a skills gap as the number of experienced firefighters dwindled.

"A lack of workforce planning means that the impacts of an ageing workforce have not been appropriately mitigated," Mr McCallum said.

"As large numbers of experienced firefighters and officers retire, at best they are being replaced with highly capable, but inexperienced recruits.

"This means there is a significant deficit in skills and experience that will grow wider as there are more retirements."

Mr McCallum said the problem of staff attrition would worsen, as he understood the TFS was considering scaling back the number of crews such as a nine-member team based at Devonport, which worked weekdays.

This, he said, would lead to greater rates of fire-related injuries and death.

"With Tasmania falling far behind other Australian fire services, it is alarming that TFS would give consideration to reducing the current number of operational fire crews," Mr McCallum said.

"It is easy to cherry pick statistics that make everything look good, but it is in the interests of every Tasmanian to examine and understand the failings of the fire service so these issues can be resolved."