Local CFA volunteer Neil Marshall has been awarded the Australian Fire Services Medal (AFSM), in recognition of his service as a frontline firefighter and a leader who has helped change the way fires are fought in Australia. 

Neil has spent more than 60 years protecting the community, through his home Brigade at Panton Hill, and groups of Brigades based around Nillumbik, Lower Yarra and Kangaroo Ground.

District 14 Headquarters East Brigade Captain Mark Gravell says Neil joined CFA as a teenage firefighter in 1960 and has served with distinction at every level up to Acting Chair of the organisation.

“Neil was one of the thousands of frontline CFA volunteers who fought fires on Ash Wednesday in 1983, the Alpine fires of 2006 and the Black Saturday fires in 2009,” Captain Gravell said.

“He still protects the community by serving as a fire spotter at the Kangaroo Ground fire tower in summer, using his experience to help guide tanker crews to fires,” he said.

As Deputy Executive Chairman of the CFA, Neil Marshall played a key part in the introduction and documentation of AIIMS; the modern organisational system for major emergencies that is now used nationwide.

At the local level, Neil demonstrated leadership in the establishment of the Panton Hill Firefighters’ Welfare Trust that raised donations and provided support to the families of the Panton Hill firefighters who lost their lives on Ash Wednesday.

And as a founding member of CFA’s District 14 Headquarters East Brigade, Neil is one of the team that met the challenge of the covid pandemic by converting regular volunteer training into the Brigade’s Tuesday night online training sessions that serve hundreds of volunteers and career emergency personnel throughout Victoria.

“Neil has quietly run up a long list of achievements and contributions that protected the community, made CFA a more effective emergency organisation and supported the volunteers who make it all work,” Captain Gravell said.

“Brigade members put Neil’s name up for the AFSM because we hold him in such high regard, and typical of Neil, he was humbly surprised when he heard he’d been nominated,” he said.