What to expect as a volunteer

Our volunteers provide on-the-ground support in emergencies: responding to natural disasters such as flood and storm, and supporting other emergency service organisations.

We want people trained and able to respond to:

  • storm damage
  • trees down on houses/cars
  • roof damage (working at heights)
  • damage to property from severe weather
  • flooding
  • road crash rescue
  • the needs of other emergency services such as Police, Fire and Ambulance.

We have operational and non-operational volunteer roles.

Operational roles

Our hands-on operational roles include:

Incident management

Working as part of an incident management team to provide essential support to field crews during an incident.

Crew leader

This role provides leadership to the members of their crew when they are working on a job.

Crew member

This is the person operating the chainsaw late at night, freeing a trapped person in a car crash or climbing a roof to do temporary repairs (often in extreme weather conditions or under time constraints).

Non-operational roles

Rescue roles are not for everyone!

If you’re enthusiastic, good with people and have basic computer skills, you can still volunteer in non-operational roles such as:

Unit Support Roles

Such as providing Logistical or administrative assistance to the unit, both during an incident and normal unit gatherings.

Community education

SES is hands-on in educating Tasmanians on how to prepare for natural hazards. We aim to build resilient communities that are less affected by emergencies, and our community programs for schools, community groups and the public include talking about:

  • what SES does
  • key safety programs such as FloodSafe and StormSafe
  • how to prepare for severe weather events and what to do during and after a weather event.

How to join the SES

If you’d like to become a volunteer with the SES, you can register your interest with our online form.

Your details will be sent to your relevant SES region and we’ll contact you to discuss your registration.

You can also contact your closest SES Regional Headquarters.