IT was a hive of activity at Melville Oval’s CFA training area, with crews from as far away as Colac and Warracknabeal, with crews put through their paces on Saturday.

The Hamilton brigade also had representation, with the locals using the day as a training method ahead of the 2024 State Championships in Mooroopna.

Both junior and senior members of the Hamilton Fire Brigade were involved, including junior captain, Ethan Appledore, who was excited to test himself against other crews at Saturday’s event in the lead up to March’s state titles.

“We have been training for ages, probably around four months,” he said.

“It is coming together slowly, just working on everything, rather than specific things.”

It is Appledore’s third season involved and will be his second championships as junior captain.

He said the experiences were what kept him coming back and was hopeful of more promising results at this year’s event.

“It is all about fun, last year was my first time going as captain, so this year will be a little bit easier,” Appledore said.

The championships will be held on March 16 and 17, with Hamilton Fire Brigade junior coordinator, Kelly Hitchcock confident Saturday’s event in Hamilton helped fine tune important skills.

“It is shaping up really well, seeing lots of positive improvements across all of our juniors,” she said.

“We will probably take eight to the championships, across Under-14 and Under-17 age groups.

“We have one goal – I would love for somebody to bring home a trophy, and we want everyone to have fun, but the main thing is we want to get through without any misses.

“If they get an event wrong, it is a miss and last year was the first time we got through without a miss.

“A competition is a training run with other teams involved.”

The Hamilton brigade travelled to Colac earlier in the month for a similar training competition with some juniors impressing and bringing home some strong results and trophies.

Hitchcock said the summer season was the more intense period for brigade members, with training weekly at the Melville Oval facility, along with other events.

“Daylight savings is our summer season, the other six months we do a winter program every Thursday night, mostly at the fire station,” she said.

Hamilton Fire Brigade fifth lieutenant, Nathan Appledore, was the event organiser for Saturday and combined with Blake Moritz along with members of the Colac brigade to form a senior team for last weekend’s event, along with the championships.

“Blake and I are running seniors at the championships,” Nathan said.

“This is the second year running, we went last year and we are going again this year.

“We are mixing with Colac, and we will have a total of five across the Hamilton and Colac combined team.

“Saturday was a good chance to practice together.”

Nathan has had a long involvement in the CFA and enjoys passing on his knowledge to others and testing himself.

“I have been involved with CFA for over 20 years,” he said.

“I started as a junior then had a break and have been involved with Hamilton for nearly 15 years now.”