Nicola Butler

She's a well-dressed corporate legal secretary by day, but what most don't know about Nicola Baker is that after hours, she is a rural firefighter.

Nicola has been part of the GW team for more than eight years and we thought it was high time we profiled her and the selfless community work she does.

Nicola joined the Eudlo Bush Fire Brigade in 2009 and she is part a strong team of more than 30 volunteers who work very hard to keep Eudlo and the surrounding communities fire safe.

The volunteers train up to twice a month and Nicola's role as the Lady Chair of the management committee sees her put a number of hours in each month working on the administration and grant writing for the essential community organisation.

Since Nicola has been part of the team, the organisation has built and paid for a new shed, they are currently renovating their old shed and they are currently awaiting for formal notification on a federal government grant for a new command vehicle.

Last weekend, Nicola was on duty undertaking a hazard reduction burn, where she and her team went to a local person's property to conduct a burn to reduce future fire risk and promote new vegetation.

When asked about how often she gets called out unexpectedly, Nicola said she can go for months without a call, and then in fire season, it can be as often as every week. The last incident she was called out for was a wild fire up behind Maleny in the Conondale area in mid-May. The incident was well managed thanks to the bush fire brigade's back burning skills (and a little bit of rain from the gods also helped to keep it under control too).

We're very proud of the work Nicola does in our community and we look forward to profiling more the work our valued GW team members and the work they do behind the scenes to make our community such a wonderful place to live.