Insiders from within the Tasmania Fire Service (TFS) have raised the alarm on a lack of resources and staff they say could leave the state exposed during the busy summer fire season.
Sources have told the ABC the southern region is struggling for volunteers, with people from the state's north-west called in to backfill strike teams during a recent total fire ban.
There were 159 overtime shifts recorded in the south alone in October, they said — a bill of about $160,000.
A northern career firefighter was recently called to cover a shift at the Bridgewater fire station, according to the insiders, and staff in the north and south were sometimes working double shifts simply to keep stations open.
"It's luck that's getting us by," one TFS source said.
"We just fill holes with warm bodies."
Leigh Hills from the United Firefighters Union's Tasmanian branch echoed the insiders' concerns, saying there was "a lot of frustration among our members at the moment".
"Call-ins for overtime are quite high and that adds to the frustration," he said.
"They haven't had any downtime from last fire season yet and their normal jobs have continued.
"They'd be able to respond [to summer fires] but it'd be very patchy. They'd have to pull in resources from elsewhere."
The union said staff were also travelling from the south to the north and from Launceston to Devonport to maintain staffing levels.
The fire season has already kicked off in Tasmania, with a number of blazes around the state and days of total fire bans.
Three per cent of Tasmania was burned in last summer's devastating bushfires, with communities south of Huonville and in the state's Central Highlands put at particular risk.
More than 95,000 hectares of the state burned between December and March was within the Wilderness World Heritage Area — equal to 6 per cent of the protected land.
One of nine recommendations from an independent review of the state's response to the blazes released in August was that a purpose-built state operations centre be constructed to replace cramped facilities at Cambridge, near Hobart.
Minister backs fire service readiness
Tasmania's readiness to respond to the impending season has dominated State Parliament question time in the past month and Emergency Services Minister Mark Shelton was again the target of Labor and the Greens on Tuesday.
He did not dispute the claims but continually backed the TFS as ready to respond to summer fires.
In a statement, TFS chief Chris Arnol said the service was "as prepared as possible".
"We are trained, capable, well-resourced and ready to respond," he said.
Overtime was normal in times of multiple bushfires, such as in October he said, and confirmed a Launceston firefighter was recently tasked with covering a shift in the south — but said they usually lived in Hobart anyway.
The TFS sources said the service was planning to erect a demountable building in the Cambridge centre's car park to serve as the statewide incident control centre.
Mr Arnol confirmed demountables would be placed at Cambridge to allow the facility to continue training recruits.
"TFS is a statewide fire service, and when there is a more serious fire danger in a particular region, resources can and will be drawn from other areas to assist," he said.
