For Superintendent David Lewis, visiting his 250 firefighters in the 17 Regional South Zone 2 stations takes a bit longer, with stations stretched from Mittagong to Batlow and from Cootamundra to Forbes.

Mr Lewis moved to Moss Vale at the turn of the century with wife Else and three children and has worked at Goulburn as a training officer. He returned to the headquarters to take over in November last year.

The 20-year veteran of the NSW Fire Brigades grew up in Coogee before attending Parramatta Maris. He was first stationed under former Bowral fire chief Kieran Britt at Stanmore in 1989, worked at Blacktown for eight years, and was duty commander at Wollongong and Tamworth. He was the station officer at Liverpool for two years and was made Inspector in 2004.

Mr Lewis worked as the Response Co-ordinator at the Sydney Communication Centre as well as the urban search and rescue section at Ingleburn.

In October last year Mr Lewis led the NSWFB team in a 31-member Australian Tsunami relief effort in Samoa.

“It was a real eye opener. We worked on a 40-kilometre stretch that was affected,” he said.

All three of Mr Lewis’ children attended or attend Chevalier College. He said the family is non-communicado during the winter weekends with both his boys playing rugby for Bowral and his daughter a keen netballer.

The 44-year-old said the family loved living in the Highlands.

“We love the weather - bring on winter,” he said.

“It’s the community. It was good to get out of the rat race of Sydney, even though I was a Sydney boy all my life.”