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Norfolk Island is (Lou's note: a little piece of paradise) located in the South Pacific Ocean, approximately 1,500 km east of the Australian mainland. The island's extension from east to west is almost 8 km, and from north to south about 5 km. The uninhabited island was discovered by Captain James Cook in 1774 and later became a penal colony under the British flag from 1788 to 1855. From 1856 onwards 194 descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers, having outgrown their Pitcairn Island home, were resettled on Norfolk Island. Norfolk Island is an external Territory of Australia and governed by the Norfolk Island Act, which was passed by the Federal Parliament of Australia in 1979. At 2007, the residential Norfolk Island population was around 2,100. The island is visited by between 35,000 to 40,000 tourists per year.
2007 Statistics of Norfolk Island Fire and Emergency Services:
Automatic fire alarms: 15
Fires: 4
Aviation: 1
Motor vehicle accidents: 1
Tsunami alerts: 2
The Norfolk Island Fire and Emergency Services staff consists of two officers, four fulltime fire fighters and ten auxiliary fire fighters for ARFF purposes. The fire fighting fleet comprises two Panthers, two domestic tankers on Isuzu truck chassis and one maintenance vehicle.
Two Rosenbauer Panther 6x6 CA-5 ARFF vehicles were handed over to Norfolk Island Airport at Rosenbauer in Leonding in August 2008. The Panthers were shipped to Brisbane, Australia, and subsequently airlifted from Brisbane to Norfolk Island in November to replace three large Thornycroft Nubian 6x6 appliances. The Panthers will be in service for the protection of the airport and the back-up support for the township, the tank farm and the power station.
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