'No foam, no air con': the tanker is 34 years old and still on the front line

A local CFA brigade using a 34-year-old tanker helped fight the devastating Streatham fires but now it's focus is on a different battle - obtaining a modern truck.

Gazette CFA brigade captain Lincoln Ellis and members were part of a strike team sent to the Skipton area on January 10, 2026.

The brigade has battled other fires, such as the ones on St Patrick's Day in 2018 and the more recent Grampians fire in December 2024, using its tanker, which was commissioned in 1991.

"Our tanker doesn't have foam on it, A class foam used to suppress fires, plus it's a two-wheel drive making some terrain difficult to navigate and no air con," Mr Ellis said.

The brigade was told in September, 2025, it would receive a new tanker but due to mechanical issues with the replacement vehicle, it is still waiting.

"It's a 2014 tanker, so it's already more than 10 years old," Mr Ellis said of the replacement.

"It's cascaded, which means it's passed on from one of the other brigades, so it's not a new vehicle."

"There was houses, buildings, crops, farm machinery in paddocks, hay in paddocks and sheds were still going up (on fire)," Mr Ellis said.

"There were CFA members from the local brigades that had been out fighting fires and they came back to their places being destroyed.

"The Grampians fire was bit of a slow burn because it was in the forest, but this one, in just the speed in which it went through, it left nothing in front of it.

"I just feel bad for the people that went through this, it's widespread and it burnt the crops to ash, there's nothing."

Mr Ellis joined the CFA in April 2018, following the St Patrick's Day fires, which ravaged parts of the south-west, including Gazette. He fought that fire on private tankers. He became captain of the CFA brigade in July, 2025.