I am concerned that we are going to be the scapegoats here. To this point, there still has been virtually no feedback to brigades or personnel that I have seen and no debrief that I had seen. Many that I have spoken to are still unsure if they did a good job or not, if they were in the right place or not, whether they were effective or not and that's not good enough for a volunteer work force. On top of that, the best message ESB can come up with is that we need to be better trained. That's positive feedback, isn't it?

I'm sorry for the length of the note. I did want to offer my support and thank you for putting the questions to the Chief Minister and ESB on this issue and suggesting that things may not be as they would have us believe. See you on the highway or the fire ground.

I thought you'd be interested in this.

I think the overriding question is why did the current administration-

allow this resentment of ESB and the administration to go on. It has really come out of the apparent lack of interest in volunteer brigades, something that could have been so easily avoided.

The night was organised by ESB, facilitated by an independent consultant, Davidson Trahaire, with the objective of gauging the state of brigades at the moment. Attendees were from Jerra, Rivers, Gungahlin, Hall, HQ, Geyser's Creek and Southern. One of the most interesting things to come out of the meeting is that all the brigades have a lot of issues to offload before the recovery process can proceed. In particular, the negative feelings towards ESB and their apparent lack of interest in the volunteer brigades and the lack of follow-up at any level after the January fire. The meeting was very vocal, aimed at ESB, through what is perceived as a lack of appreciation of the volunteer brigades in the ACT.

ESB's focus on training seen as a negative message and an insult to firefighters. The training deadlines proposed are ridiculous and brigades will ignore them. The emphasis being put on meeting competencies on paper rather than gaining