Source: Victoria Country Fire Authority
Married for almost 22 years, Rhett and Leah Chalwell share a long-standing commitment to both family and community through Bright Fire Brigade.
Rhett has been a member for 10 years, Leah for eight, and their son and daughter have since joined the brigade. Most recently, Rhett and Leah responded to the Walwa fire as strike team leader and crew leader.
Rhett
“I’ve been in CFA for about 10 years. Myself and a friend who lived here at the time were both tradies and decided to just head down to the local station and put our names down.
Leah joined in 2018 and our son and daughter are members now too. They’ve both watched us do what we do and run out the door when the pager goes off. They decided they could give it a try as well. They’ve done quite a bit of training now – structural, breathing apparatus (BA) skills maintenance and things like that. They’ve worked their way up in their qualifications in the brigade too which has been good.
Usually, we just drive to station together if we’re all at home. We all went to a callout together at the childcare centre. It was our children’s first one. There was another job we went to with all four of us on the same truck. That was the way it worked out that day. It’s been good to be able to do that stuff as a family, and obviously you do your Monday night training as well, which is great.
Leah recently became 4th lieutenant at our brigade. She’s the first female lieutenant for Bright in the history of the brigade. It’s been good to see. A lot of people have been trying to shift the culture in our brigade to become more family orientated. I think Leah becoming 4th lieutenant is another stepping stone towards that.
There are a couple of other women in the brigade. One of them joined in the last six months and another has been here for a year and a half. For them to see Leah in her role shows there are no barriers.
Leah’s a lieutenant and I’m a deputy group officer (DGO) with the Ovens Valley Group. I’m also the peer coordinator for District 23 and 24. Technically, Leah is the ranking officer in our family at brigade level. But when we go to certain jobs, if it’s me and Leah and a couple of other people, she knows she can pull from other people their expertise and skill sets and pass on the chain of command when needed.
When I was strike team leader in the recent fires it was good to have Leah as a crew leader to be able to share that experience. It was my first proper strike team leader role, and it was Leah’s first proper crew leader role. When we are in that space, we know what our role is. Leah has got her crew and she’s got to look after them. But if she needs to talk to me as the strike team leader on the day, that’s what our job is. When we finish at the end of the day though, we come home and go back to being husband and wife.
Leah and I run our own business and being self-employed is a big advantage for us in terms of turning out. A lot of our work is around the Bright area. So, if the pager goes off we can drop tools and get to a lot of incidents. With strike teams, we can just ring up clients and explain the situation and everyone is very supportive. Our availability makes it easy for the captain of the brigade, knowing that we are around 90 per cent of the time for when the pager does go off.
Something I admire about Leah is the way she sees everybody, regardless of who they are, what they’re doing, what their role, or what their position is. I also admire her quiet achieving. Just getting in and getting it done and not putting her hand up to say, “Look at me”.
I’m a pretty strategic person and I do lots of planning. I have everything written down in the diary and follow it to the tee. If it deviates from the plan, I sometimes find it a bit harder to readjust whereas Leah is a bit freer and can reevaluate and adjust.
She’s also very discerning, which a lot of people probably don’t see. There are a few jobs that we’ve been to where Leah has noticed things that others haven’t. We went to a structure fire recently. The people that were in the building next door had been told get out of their house. They were just standing there on the side of the road in their pyjamas for ages. Leah noticed them after doing her stint in BA and just went over and talked to them. It’s a lot of things like that, whether it’s at home or at the brigade. She’s got this high level of discernment around things that blokes tend to miss. It doesn’t necessarily get noticed by other people. It’s more of a quiet thing.
What I love about CFA is that it gives me something different to focus on. It takes you out of the everyday and puts you in a space where you can do different things, use different skills and different abilities. I think that’s why I’ve got my hat in so many different areas, whether it’s at the brigade with the turnouts, or whether it’s as the peer coordinator or as a DGO. They’re all different roles that have different skill sets and I get to meet so many different people. I think that’s the beauty of strike teams too; I meet a lot of people that I may have heard about but never met, and we become lifelong friends through those experiences.”
Leah
“We own our own business. Rhett was working on his own but then I joined him eight years ago. Rhett was already a member of the brigade and when he’d get a callout, I’d wait for him in the car outside the station. One day he just asked the question, “Why don’t you jump on the truck?” It hadn’t even occurred to me that I could. So that’s how I joined.
In my own experience, I think women sometimes won’t put their hand up for something unless they’re presented with it. And I think it’s really important to be able to see someone else doing it. It never occurred to me that I could get my medium rigid truck licence until I saw Jenny Ricardi from Myrtleford brigade driving a truck. I’ve seen it happen a few times with my daughter. She asks, “Can I do that?” and I make sure I tell her, “Yes you can”.
When it comes to volunteering there are so many different levels you can be involved in. I am very involved at brigade level, but Rhett is involved more at district level. Obviously, our kids aren’t available as us and have different priorities, but they just jump in when they’re available. So, as a family, we’ve all got the different levels in how much we’re involved.
I’ve found that you switch hats a little bit. Even though our kids are adults, at home they still live under our rules. But when we’re on the truck, we’re not mum and dad; we’re just another member. But the beauty of being a family member at brigade level is that you do understand a look. You do understand a body posture. So, there’s a lot of unspoken language which is used a lot on the ground, so that’s where it comes into play.
When we attended the Walwa fire in January as strike team leader and crew leader, it had its advantages and disadvantages. I was aware that I had that personal connection with someone who we all had to take direction from. It was really good having him there for my first crew leader experience, because if something really did go awry I knew he would understand and hear it in my voice over the radio. He’d probably be able to work out what was going on just by my tone.
In terms of our work life together, it’s pretty predictable. People know that if they see the work van in town we’re around. We have a strong faith and on Sunday mornings we’re in Wodonga where we go to church. Our brigade members know if the pager goes off on a Sunday the Chalwells won’t be there.
I think there’s a lot about Rhett that people don’t know because he’s quite a private person. He may come across as rigid because he’s a planner and he sticks to it. But what people don’t know is that he’s quite playful. He’s not just that one-dimensional person. He’s ridiculously skilled and handy, but I think at brigade level you sometimes only see one side of people because they put a hat on.
Something I admire about Rhett is his resilience to stay in leadership. When the hard knocks come, they don’t take him out. He learns from it, grows and moves on in a positive way. He makes changes to alleviate any future issues.
For me, volunteering at CFA has been a different way to connect with my husband besides being at home with the kids. That was how it started. Over time it’s morphed into being a way to connect with community with a different skill set, at a different level that takes you away from work life. That’s what I’ve gained through volunteering for CFA.”
- Rhett and Leah Chalwell with children Riley and Grace
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