On Thursday 11th Feb 2010 @ 9.15am the Brigade received a pager call (Via 000) for a structure fire on Geelong-Portarlington Road. Crews from Portarlington and Drysdale arrived to find the top level of a two story house well alight.

The fire took approximately 35 minutes to get under control with a combined 15 firefighters from Portarlington and Drysdale on scene.

2 crews using Breathing Apparatus, one from Portarlington and one from Drysdale, performed an interior attack while a crews on a 64mm branch provided asset protection and initial fire attack.

Appliances on scene were:
Portarlington Pumper
Portarlington Tanker
Portarlington Car
Drysdale Pumper
Corio BA Van (Refilled Expired BA Cylinders)
Regional Duty Officer 7 (Fire Investigation)

On Sunday the 24^th of May the Portarlington fire brigade held its annual afternoon tea in the bosuns room of the Portarlington Grand Hotel. The afternoon tea is held to award such awards as Life time achievement awards along with the Captains award, The Hydrant award and certificates of appreciation for the business’s and individuals that have offered outstanding support over the past year to the brigade. The Following is a list of recipients on the day:

Life Membership to the Portarlington Fire Brigade was awarded to Paul Leat for his outstanding dedication to the brigade for his many years of service as a Member and a Lieutenant of the brigade.

The Captains Award presented by Captain Paul Russell was awarded to Fire Fighter Liam Scott for his service as Treasurer over the past 4 years along with his reliability over the past fire season.

The perpetual Hydrant Checkers Award went to Craig Serle with 156 hydrant checks followed in 2^nd place by Tom Spence with 124 checks then in 3^rd place was Liam Scott with 56 checks.

The following people and business were presented with a certificate of appreciation for the outstanding support given to the brigade over the past year:

• The Portarlington Grand Hotel
• Portarlington IGA
• Portarlington Country Butchers
• Bellarine Estate Winery and Restaurant
• Williamson’s IGA Portarlington.

In the third week of March the bi-annual Australian International Air Show was held at Avalon airfield 10kms north of Geelong. As the CFA supports the ARFF (Aviation and Rescue Fire Fighting service) there is a requirement for the CFA to provide additional volunteer and staff support during the event.

The Portarlington CFA was more then happy to provide 9 members during the 3 days to assist in all different types of duties from crew leaders to bus drivers. With 3 members being present on Saturday when high winds caused chaos and flipped at least 4 light air craft in the high winds.

As most will know on Saturday the 7^th of February 2009 the state faced extreme fire danger conditions that had never been seen before in the history of the CFA. All members of the CFA family spent the morning hoping that nothing would break out, however in the hours after 1300 all hell broke loose in the state of Victoria which lead to over 170 deaths and over 2000 properties being destroyed. For the next month fire fighters and emergency services from across Australia came to the aid of the Victorian community to offer support to the areas affected.

The Portarlington CFA was not called to assist on the 7^th as it was tasked along with other brigades in the area with protecting the Bellarine Peninsula as resources were stretched to the limits, however over the following month the brigade’s forward command vehicle was called away on a number of occasions to the east of Victoria and the brigades new tanker was called away to the King Lake Complex for 3 weeks to assist along with a large amount of members who volunteered their time doing 11 three day stints on the fire line over the course of the fire.