i like to save people, trees nantd. i love it >> reporter: a few years ago the local fire brigade faced a problem. a dwindling number of recruits. five years ago there weren't enough volunteers to run a training exercise like this one, let alone to have enough people reliably on call for when a real fire broke out. the fires service was becoming unviable. >> we had about 12 members in the brigade. that's not enough for what we want to do in the community. we really had to do something to change that around. >> reporter: the fire service made an active effort to recruit from ethnic minorities, particularly resettled refugees. nowadays australia's government deports any refugees who come by boat, but between 2010 and 2013 tens of thousands arrived who were allowed to stay. a high number settled to the south and east of melbourne, the very area facing a shortage of firefighting volunteers. today of the 52 based at noble park, half are from immigrant backgrounds. >> they helped us and accept us to be in australia, so i shou