Meet Waimea's teenage firefighter

From the outside, 17-year-old Alex Riley might look like your ordinary Waimea College Year 13 student – he loves sports and motorbikes but now he is also a qualified volunteer firefighter.

“Ever since a young age, I guess I’ve been pretty active,” Alex says.

“Played a lot of hockey, basketball… I did about four years in cadets, really loved my time there.”

Alex has also got into gliding and powered flying, as well as mountainbiking and track racing.

But when he turned 16, Alex says it was time for a new challenge. He wanted to do something different to step up and challenge himself, while also giving back to the community and making a difference.

When he learned that you could volunteer to be a firefighter at 16, Alex thought ‘why not?’. He signed up straight away.

He trained for about nine months, with a Covid delay part way through, to become qualified.

“It’s a lot of physical activity, working with the gear that we’ve got, working as a team.”

Now that he’s qualified, Alex says the main difference is when he’s on the trucks.

“I’m not just the extra person… [I’m] one of the members of the crew that’s fulfilling an operational role.”

Alex says that he has been called out a few times.

“Been to a few house fires, motor vehicle accidents. It is a bit intense and a bit crazy sometimes, but we’ve got such an amazing team here, amazing people to work with, everyone’s got your back.”

Richmond Fire Brigade chief fire officer Craig Piner has nothing but praise for Alex.

“[He’s] really good, really enthusiastic, a real keen member of the brigade. We’re bit of a big family, so it’s been really good having him as a part of it. We’re really rapt to have him in the brigade.”

For the future, Alex says that when he turns 18, he plans to apply to become a career firefighter.

However, from a young age, he’s been set on joining the Air Force.

“That’s definitely still on the horizon. I’m doing all my classes this year - really smashing them out so I can get the grades for the Air Force for a pilot.”

It appears that not even the sky is the limit for Alex, but until he gets there, he’s helping to keep Richmond safe.