I work in an urban area and we are manned 24 hours a day on a 10/14 shift. (2 days on, 2 nights on, 4 days off). Smaller country area towns have auxiliary urban stations where part time firefighters are called out by pager and paid by the hour while on training or calls. (they have other full time jobs mostly). Rural areas are served by by volunteers.
Initial response in urban (full time/auxiliary) areas is: Structural: 2 pumpers - Automatic Fire Alarms: 1 or 2 pumpers depending on life risk - Bushfires: 1 pumper - Road Accident Rescue: 2 pumpers or 1 pumper & 1 heavy rescue depending on location The officer in charge of the incident will call for additional resources as he sees fit.
We don't have ladders as you would understand them in the USA. There are some but they are specialist vehicles called when required. In south east Queensland (the heaviest populated area of the state) there are: Brisbane 2 turntable ladders 120 feet + 1 hydraulic platform 80 feet + 3 teleboom pumpers 50 feet : Gold Coast 1 turntable ladder 120 feet + 1 high reach platform 140 feet + 1 teleboom 50 feet. The telebooms respond as ordinary pumpers in their own station areas.
Also we don't do EMS/EMT work - this is handled by a separate Queensland Ambulance Service. If you are interested in a detailled list of appliances (apparatus) and stations for south east Queensland, let me know.
----------------------------------------------
Peter, What would you like to know? Basically we use a UHF linked repeater network around 465 MHz (in some areas VHF around 71 MHz).
There are 7 communications centres covering different parts of the state, each with its own network. Firecom South East at Southport on the Gold Coast - Firecom Brisbane covering all of the south east corner except the Gold Coast - Firecom North Coast based at the Sunshine Coast - Firecom Central covering Central Qld from Rockhampton - Firecom South West at Toowoomba - Firecom North at Townsville - Firecom Far North at Cairns. As all the repeaters in each network are interlinked you can hear all the traffic for a particular region on any of its repeaters.
-----------------------------------------------