Reolink to the Rescue: Smart Eyes in the local RFS Fire Shed

RFS rural fire sheds are a common sight across New South Wales. Nearly every town or inhabited area has one of these khaki-green sheds, blending seamlessly into the landscape. They reflect the environment and climate of Australia, where every district inevitably faces a fire—be it a bushfire, a village blaze, or a simple burn that got out of control. It is then that these once quiet green sheds come alive. Men adorned in their yellows, scramble to attention and of course the pièce de résistance the big red trucks come out to play.

Bush fires in this country are a serios matter. Nearly everyday of the fie season for the past 5 years there has been an active fire. So to is maintenance and security of the sheds that contain fire mitigation devices such as those, big red shiny fire trucks. The last thing a fire brigade needs is to arrive at the shed and find gear missing, flat batteries or worse still no truck at all.

Reolink to the Rescue !

Last year we installed Reolink cameras into our local RFS fire shed. These have complete coverage of all the ingress and egress points, every appliance and a full view of entire inside of the shed.

These cameras utilised Reolinks Smart Motion Detection system and are configured to trigger on any motion within the shed. Reolinks motion detection, can distinguish between animal, human and car so it makes configuration easy and customisable.

We used the Reolink wireless models as all NSW Rural Fire Service Sheds now have WIFI services supported either via Telstra 4G or 5G or Starlink satellite.

What Reolink security triggers did we set ?

We tinkered with he triggers and the delays between triggers for quite sometime to get them right. What we decided apon was -

On motion -

Send a still image to the captain, senior deputy captain and president via Email straight away. Then if motion continues, continue to send still images every 3 minutes.

At the same time, record for the entire time including 60 seconds before the motion was detected.

Transfer all recoding's to a private cloud in so that data can not be stolen if the cameras a stolen or destroyed.

How did it go ?

Brilliantly!

All approved officers now get an instant Email as soon as someone enters the shed. They can see who is tacking out the trucks and when they are returned.

They can see the fire extinguisher testers come and perhaps turn off the power or lights that should be always on.

Deliveries from district such as water bottles, equipment and PPE can be identified in real time and actioned if required.

What other measures where required ?

The whole system including the WIFI internet is powered via the main power. It was decided to apply to the electricity company for a electricity lock to put on the power meter. This way any would be thieves could not easily disable the power supply.

Signage: signage was installed on all entries and exists of the fire shed, to ensure all staff, vendors and visitors where clearly advised of the cameras.

The Impact: Peace of Mind, Day and Night

The objective was to limit those small events of things that just seem to go missing. And although this has stopped those occurrences happening, the biggest windfall is the knowledge and information the officers receive in regards to the activity at the shed outside of illegal activity. Knowing when a vehicle is borrowed or has gone for service is priceless. As is seeing a colleague turn up and preforming the quarterly maintenance checks.

For such a small capital outlay, this technology should have been installed much sooner.

A must for all RFS sheds across the land.