THE Country Fire Authority (CFA) District 5 and District 6 Community Education Team, consisting of members from the Hamilton and Colac regions, were rewarded for their dedication to protecting their local community at this year’s Spirit of CFA Awards held in Ballarat last month.

CFA south west regional community engagement coordinator, Mandy Maglaras, and her team – which consists of members from both districts, won the 2022 Excellence in Community Engagement Award, which recognises CFA members who have worked collaboratively to develop and apply innovative approaches to community engagement.

Ms Maglaras and her team developed and implemented a comprehensive smoke alarm and house fire safety campaign after observing a spike in house fire fatalities in the south-west over the past couple of years.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms Maglaras worked with her team and CFA Headquarters to build a program that took a different approach to house fire fatality mitigation and focused on developing the technical infrastructure required to implement it.

Throughout the lengthy process, Ms Maglaras said she and her team worked alongside other volunteer organisations such as Rotary Clubs and Lions Clubs to install smoke alarms.

“We also established collaborative partnerships with industry groups such as real estate agents, DHHS (Department of Health and Human Services), and service providers to ensure smoke alarms and fire blankets were installed in the most vulnerable community members’ homes,” she said.

“After seven fatalities that were all deemed preventable across 18 months in 2017-18, I knew more had to be done to help protect people most at risk.

“There was already some great work being done but this project allowed me to expand our resources and build a team to undertake this important work.”

In the period from May 2019 to June 2022, the Community Education Team have visited more than 720 homes and installed more than 1400 smoke alarms.

“Some of these houses had old smoke alarms from 1998 which was frightening to see,” Ms Maglaras said.

“The community must check the stickers on their smoke alarms and replace the whole unit if it’s more than 10 years old.

“It was devastating to see 130 homes had no smoke alarms installed at all and more than 290 smoke alarms were not working.

“A lot of people can’t physically or financially do this themselves, so we have to help them, and that’s what we’re now doing.”

As a result of the success from the south-west Community Education Team’s project, the program will now be rolled out across the state and deliver practical safety interventions to all households.

Ms Maglaras said she had mixed emotions when finding out she and her team won the Spirit of CFA Award.

“It’s my job to help save lives but I also know I can’t do this without the incredible group of people around me,” she said.

“It takes an army of CFA members and volunteers from other organisations who are passionate about this like I am to help deliver this program and I’m very grateful to have them.”