Title: "Sharon Merritt Honored with Australian Fire Service Medal for Exceptional Leadership and Community Service"

Sharon Merritt AFSM has received the prestigious Australian Fire Service Medal in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours for her outstanding service to CFA and the community.

Sharon has been a CFA member for 28 years, initially as a volunteer firefighter and then a staff member for more than 15 years. Since 2003, Sharon has served as captain of Macclesfield Fire Brigade, showing exceptional leadership in a specialised large animal rescue brigade.

Sharon is a qualified sector commander, strike team leader, crew leader, and Level 3 fire behaviour analyst and safety officer. She has responded to many significant incidents at the local level, interstate and overseas deployments. She was a Level 3 incident management team safety officer during the 2019-20 Victorian fires and was a strike team leader and sector commander during the 2009 fires.

"I spent most of the 2019-20 fire season away from home,” Sharon said. “I was everywhere and saw all of Gippsland. I was surprised by the scale of the fires. They covered huge areas over a long period of time. It was incredible.

“As a safety officer I was in the field and in incident control centres. My role was to look after the safety of firefighters, both physical and psychological. It was a challenge dealing with a wide range of safety issues. A particular challenge was making sure crews could safely get to Mallacoota on a single road that was impacted by hazardous trees.”

She recognised the specialist response needed for large animals in distress, including during bushfires and floods, and she was integral in developing the brigade’s large animal rescue unit, one of only two in Victoria. This type of rescue needs specialist knowledge and understanding of large animals as well as considering the needs of the surrounding community.

"Our brigade had responded to horse rescues for the past 15 years, as there are a large number of horses in our area and they can get stuck in a lot of places,” Sharon said. “The number of rescues increased over the past 10 years, but we didn’t have the correct equipment to deal with them. Luckily, equipment was donated to the brigade by riding schools.

“Brigade members were trained in large animal rescue by overseas’ experts, we did accredited training, and it grew from there.”

In addition to large animal rescue, Sharon has been an advocate for educating horse owners about effective management practices during bushfires. Moreover, her work has played a significant role in mitigating the risks associated with the interaction between emergency services and the equine community in the challenging and dynamic conditions of a bushfire.

Sharon was the first woman in District 13’s Dandenong Ranges Group to become a captain. Under her leadership, the number of women firefighters in Macclesfield Fire Brigade has doubled.

She is passionate about mentoring women in CFA, providing operational training (including one-on-one General Firefighter training) to women staff in District 13.

Sharon led the brigade during the planning and construction of the new Macclesfield Fire Station, which was completed in 2010, and was instrumental in acquiring the land for it.

As a qualified trainer/assessor, Sharon is endorsed to train members in General Firefighter, Suppress Wildfire, Respond to Isolated Structure Fire (Low Structure), Hazmat Awareness, and Crew Leadership.

She is also a volunteer structural and wildfire fire investigator and was recently part of the team that investigated the significant Yering Golf Club fire.

"I started investigating fires in 1998 and I have conducted more than 600 investigations as a volunteer. I’m fascinated by the science and determining the cause – I’m interested in why things happen. I’ve also been to court several times as a witness.”

For 12 years, she worked as a CFA staff member as a vegetation management officer, focusing on bushfire risk management through prevention and mitigation efforts. Her expertise in developing and implementing fuel management plans across District 13 included cultural and ecological fire management. As a qualified Level 3 burns controller, she played a crucial role in community preparedness.

“I conducted burns every year for 12 years in District 13,” Sharon said. “I remember a planned burn near Silvan Reservoir that was particularly effective. About two years after the burn there was a lightning strike on the burnt ground. Although it caused a fire, it was brought under control quickly. Also, if the area hadn’t been previously burned, the fire would have showered Monbulk with embers and caused more fires. The planned burn worked and there were no embers.”