TAMWORTH Rural Fire Service (RFS) is holding out hope extra funding and crews will be headed this way to help prepare for another bushfire season.
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The state government has announced a record firefighting budget to help fast track hazard reduction burns and boost RFS fleets across the state.
The additional $45 million in funding includes a portion to send 25 extra mitigation crews, each made up of four people, out to help prepare the Australian bush for the fire season.
Tamworth RFS Superintendent Allyn Purkiss said the city should get its share of the money.
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"I would expect, I would hope there's at least one crew coming our way," he said.
"It'll all depend on the work - if we can supply work to them, give them lots of mitigation work, then there certainly could be more."
Superintendent Purkiss said mitigation crews do all the ground work for hazard reduction burns, preparing sites for a safe burn-off.
"The trails are all put in, the breaks are all put in, so when we get around to doing the burns, all the volunteers do is come out and do the burns and it's done so they don't have to muck around," he said.
"There's a whole lot of work that is normally left up to maybe one person in my office doing all that work, and they'll be able to assist and we'll be able to do a lot more hazard reductions and get a lot more properties inspected."
The additional funding was announced by emergency services minister David Elliott.
The majority of the $45 million will go towards upgrading equipment and rolling out new and refurbished firefighting trucks to the RFS stations most in need.
"We want our volunteers to have the very best equipment available to them when they put their lives on the line to keep the community safe," Mr Elliott said.