Mount Isa firemen earn their stripes

“Skydiving was fun and a great experience for people  to share, but I wasn’t helping people in their time of need, so this feels more meaningful,” Mr Carberry said. 

“As we progressed through our lives and started having kids, I had a change of focus.

“I think firefighting appealed to me because there is many different aspects, when the bells go, there is a number of different jobs we can respond to. The unknown adds to the appeal of the job,” he said.

Mr Carberry and his colleague Patrick Buck became fully-fledged firefighters last week. 

“We have completed our mandatory training we all have to complete out of the academy, so we are now no longer probationary or junior firemen,” Mr Buck said. 

“It has been a long time coming, once you achieve this rank, then essentially the world is your oyster and you can go as far or as short within the organisation as you like.

“I guess like any little boy’s dream, I wanted to be a firemen or police officer, and I never really shook it. Then I was lucky enough that my dream became real and here I am,” he said. 

“I was always drawn to it, the camaraderie and how well firefighters are held in the community.”

Mr Carberry’s son, Tully was there to see his dad earn his final training stripe last week. 

“I felt happy and proud of him for how he was a good firefighter,” Tully said. 

He said it is pretty great to have a firemen for a father, and one day he hopes to earn a uniform. 

“It is really cool because you can go and see the firetrucks and learn all about firefighters,” he said. 

Mr Buck encouraged others to consider a career in the service and said the north west is a fantastic place to learn the trade.

“I am coming up to my third year here now, I came here fresh out of recruit school in Brisbane,” Mr Buck said.

“It is great because we get exposed to a lot of different things in Mount Isa, because we are so far from everything.

Mount Isa’s team of about 25 firefighters respond to a host of different emergencies.

“There is a lot of highway between here and the next major centre,” Mr Buck said.

That means crews respond to accidents across the north west, with little support from other stations.