Glenn emerges from the flames

IN 33 years, the average person will have their fair share of memorable moments. But for a CFA veteran like Glenn Coster, three decades of volunteering has been chock-full of unforgettable experiences.
The devastation of 1983’s Ash Wednesday fires stands out.
Yet, for every terrible situation, there is always something light- hearted to balance it off.
“That’s the sort of stuff that keeps you going – when you see the good side of it and not just the devastation all the time,” Glenn said.
He recalls the morning after Ash Wednesday when the enormity of the situation began to sink in.
Working in the Cockatoo area, the crew was emptying a tank of water at a house surrounded by smouldering trees before changing shift.
Another crew member called Glenn to the rear of the house after seeing something that sent him white as a ghost.
“Just inside the front door there was a body shaped object covered in a blanket,” he recalls.
The two opened the door and kicked what they thought was a foot but got no response.
“So we reached over and lifted the blanket and just at that moment, the guy woke up!”
The man had collapsed just inside the door, exhausted from saving his house from the fire that took so many others.
Glenn has first hand experience with the fires of Ash Wednesday, Black Saturday, two or three New South Wales bushfires as well as a number of more local bushfires.
On Black Saturday, Glenn was involved in the fires of the Tonimbuk/Labertouche area.
For Glenn, something like Black Saturday was inevitable, particularly as time makes devastating fires like Ash Wednesday a memory and complacency tends to set in.
“It was just one of those things that it didn’t matter how well prepared you were, it was going to happen, but we just didn’t know where,” he said.
He spent the day fighting fires with no idea that elsewhere in the state people were losing their lives.
“We had no idea of what was happening in Kinglake and no idea what was happening elsewhere around the state because we were concentrating on our patch and trying to make that safe,” he said.
“Often you don’t get the information through about the big picture while you’re in that situation. And it’s not until after you’ve come off shift and start hearing reports that you begin to realise that this is going to be a historic situation.”
As part of the Loch brigade, which is a rescue accredited brigade, Glenn believes he could probably picture every road accident he has been involved in.
“There are pictures that are invariably printed in your mind; you just don’t dwell on it,” he said.
Stationed in brigades around the state, Glenn spent 13 years as a paid staff member and the remainder as a volunteer.
He is currently the fourth lieutenant for the Loch brigade and delegate to the Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria.
At just 14, it was his father’s long-term involvement with the fire service that prompted him to sign up as a junior.
“He did 37 years in the fire service,” Glenn said.
“I think very early on, we had the boot communications radio for all of the Leongatha/Korumburra area and… I had a fascination for it.”
The family tradition continues as Glenn’s family (his ex-wife, three sons and a daughter) were all members for the Loch brigade at one time.
His three sons have continued their service.
Yet, being a member of the CFA was not Glenn’s only ambition as a child.
“From the age of about five or six, I wanted to be a funeral director and from the age of eight or nine, I wanted to be in the fire service and from the age of 10 or 11, I wanted to be a bus driver,” he said.
He has now successfully ticked off all three.
Glenn started out as a CFA member, has worked as a funeral director and is now a bus driver and operations manager for Simcock’s Bus Services in Pakenham.
But that’s not all.
Glenn is also a trained dental technician, Master of the Masonic lodge in Loch, has been a scout leader and resident caretaker for Bell Park Scout Camp at Nyora, in 1980 was nominated for the Rotary Youth Leadership Award and in 1984 was awarded the Australia Day Young Citizen Award for the Shire of Cranbourne.
And if that isn’t impressive enough, while a member of the CFA, Glenn has been the captain of the Bunyip Fire Brigade, an honorary probation officer for the Department of Health and Community Services, a second lieutenant, training officer and staff committee representative of the CFA Employees Association.
It is enough to make your head spin and even Glenn is astounded when he says it out loud.
“It doesn’t seem like much, but when you put it like that…,” he said amusedly.
Despite Glenn’s involvement in so many life-changing situations during his 33 years of service, he closes our interview by summing up a life dedicated to the CFA.
“It seems like a normal life to me.”