The NSW Ambulance Paramedics on the South Coast have been provided greater protection with training and the use of Hazardous Area Rescue Ambulance for the 2025/26 fire season.

Matthew Willis, who has been a paramedic in NSW for 16 years and served in the Shoalhaven region for the past nine years, spoke to The Bugle about the features of the vehicles.

“It is a German [made] vehicle with some very different capabilities to our normal ambulances and rescue trucks,” Willis said.

“Our State Emergency Services use a similar vehicle to access in floodwaters because they can wade into depths of 1.2 metres.

“[These vehicles] allow us to get to patients that we previously would have had to rely on other emergency services to get to, whether that is by boat or helicopters.

As well as being able to access flood regions, the vehicles are equipped with fire-retardant material so they will not melt or burn in a bushfire situation.

The exterior of the vehicle has been reinforced to protect paramedics and patients from falling trees.

“We also have the crew protection system, which will set off sprinklers, like little water jets to try and keep it cool as well,” Willis said.

Minister for the Illawarra and South Coast Ryan Park said the Minns Labor Government is committed to helping communities when they are most vulnerable.

“NSW Hazardous Area Rescue Ambulance (HARA) are the first of their kind in the world and are proving to be an invaluable resource during natural disasters like fires and floods,” Park said.

“These vehicles have been built to withstand harsh environments, allowing the highly skilled paramedics who operate them to swiftly and safely access patients in difficult terrain and conditions.”

As part of the training, Willis explained it was a four-day course which provided different settings to familiarise paramedics with the vehicles.

“The first day was about getting used to driving the vehicle in normal conditions, and working out where all the different buttons were,” Willis said.

“The second day was more about off-road driving through the bush, uphills and the third and fourth days were about sand driving on the beach and recovery.”

NSW Ambulance chief executive Dr Dominic Morgan said the vehicles were a significant investment in their capabilities.

“Now that the 2025-26 bushfire season is officially underway, NSW Ambulance is working hard to ensure staff have the training and resources at hand to deal with emergencies as they rise,” Dr Morgan said.

South Coast MP Liza Butler and her Kiama electorate neighbour Katelin McInerney were full of praise for these vehicles and paid tribute to NSW paramedics and front-line workers in the region.

“The Illawarra and Shoalhaven regions have faced their fair share of natural disasters in recent years and it’s comforting to know that NSW Ambulance paramedics can access patients during these difficult times,” Butler said.

McInerney added: “I want to thank the hard-working paramedics and other front-line workers who keep our communities safe during bushfire season and year round.”

Willis told The Bugle that during the deadly 2019-20 fire season, the emergency services crews “had a lot of access issues with roads being cut off”.

“[HARAs] increase our capability massively and they allow us to get into places that we previously haven’t been able to get into.”