This question is at the centre of a recruitment project I'm working on right now with CFA – Country Fire Association – volunteer fire fighters in Victoria who pull us from car crashes and fires.

Being caught in the terrifying 2009 Black Saturday bushfires I saw first hand how essential the brave men and women are who volunteer with CFA. Is my admiration for them heightened by the fact that I grew up in a country that doesn't have either bushfires or volunteer fire fighters?  Perhaps.  

I am certainly awestruck that people I've never met risk their lives to save mine, and I'm chuffed to have had the opportunity to profile a few of them for the press recently and they've been grouped together in this publication – see link below.  

Community Volunteers' Report 2015