The Newlands Station of the Volunteer Wildfire Services is located in Newlands Forest, just above the M3, and just below the helipad. Our base is joined to the SANParks Fire Mangers’ offices. At the base we have a Control Room from where all our communications and dispatching happens. Next door to the Control Room is the Planning Room. The Planning Room serves as an up to date digital map of the fire and the resources that are at the fire. Crew Leaders send information back to the Planners who in turn plot this information into the computer to keep track of everything. The Planning Room serves as the Operational Manager and Station Manager’s Office when there are no fires burning. The VWS Operational Manager, Matthew Ferguson, looks after the day-to-day functionality of the VWS as a whole.

At the back of the Fire Base we have our Fire Store, our Clothing Store and our General Store. The Fire Store has all of our tools and equipment that we need for firefighting operations such as portable water pumps, hoses, rake hoes and fire beaters etc. Our General Store has a lot of our Training equipment and non firefighting related items. The Clothing Store has all of the uniforms and PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) that we issue to our firefighters.

We have a large flat screen TV in the main hall that is linked to the Planning computer so that live fire information can be put on display.

Over the past fire season we shared our Fire Base with the UT Air pilots. These are the very skilled helicopter pilots that provide aerial support to ground teams.

If you are ever walking in Newlands Forest feel free to pop in and speak to one of the managers, be it regarding joining or just if you would like to know a little bit about the Volunteer Wildfire Services.