Meet the North Hamilton Fire Brigade’s first-ever female lieutenant

Tash Frankensteiner doesn’t do things by halves. She’s a student nurse, a business owner, a single mum — and now, North Hamilton CFA’s first-ever female lieutenant.

This week, after five years on the brigade, Frankensteiner was voted in as fourth lieutenant for the Country Fire Authority — a moment she says took her completely by surprise.

“When we had the election meeting, I was actually blown away,” Frankensteiner told the Brolga. 

“Someone's mentioned my name, and I thought no, I'm not worthy of that job. Then everyone voted me in. That moved significantly faster than what I thought.”

Frankensteiner’s grandfather was a firefighter in Koroit decades ago, and her dad, John – now captain of the Sandford brigade in region four – has been part of the CFA her entire life.

“I applied for North Hamilton, once I was going through probation, I was going out to grass and scrub fires on the back of the truck and I absolutely loved it.”

It didn’t take long for the other members of the brigade, whom Frankensteiner lovingly refers to as “the boys at the shed”, to notice the small but mighty contributions she made daily.

One of her first experiences on a strike team sent her out to help black out areas at Pomonal after devastating fires swept through the town over the 2023/24 summer. 

At Beaufort the same year, she hit the ground alongside her dad – a moment she described as “awesome”.

But it was the Grampians fires over the 2024/25 Christmas period that left the biggest mark.

“I spent [a] majority of my summer holidays up in the Grampians this year, fighting the fires before and after Christmas as well,” she said. “I actually coped better than what I thought.”

“I remember growing up dad saying that fire creates its own weather,” Frankensteiner said.

“I thought, no, I don't believe that. But it was during the Grampians that I actually got to see that and I thought, wow, Dad was right.”

One moment in particular still sticks in her mind.

“I pulled up in the ultra light [tanker] with another crew member from North Hamilton and we had both doors open, and the fire was actually creating its own vacuum. It sucked everything off the dash of the cruiser. It nearly knocked me off my feet, just the power of it.”

As the fire approached farmers' properties just before Christmas, Frankensteiner experienced a moment of stillness that quickly turned into chaos.

“When people say it's like a hundred thousand freight trains coming towards you, the sound of it – that's exactly what it's like. And then it just goes dark. You can hardly see anything in front of you, and we're expected to put a fire out that we can hardly see.”

The two large bushfires that started in the Southern Grampians in December 2024 burned a total of 135,800 hectares of national park and surrounding private land before they were declared under control in February.

A wildlife ecologist told the ABC at the time it would take 20 years to recover what had been lost in one of the "most biologically important landscapes in Victoria".

Four homes and 40 outbuildings were also lost in the fires. 

The CSIRO’s 2024 State of the Climate report found extreme fire weather is happening more often and more intensely, and fire seasons are getting longer across large parts of the country, especially in southern Australia. This is due to increasing heat events and decreasing rainfall. The CSIRO’s report noted rainfall for April to October in the south-west of Australia has decreased by 16 percent since 1970. 

As the impact of climate change has been felt more broadly, higher temperatures have also become common – contributing to droughts that create the perfect environment for fast-spreading fires.

Through all of her experiences with the CFA, Frankensteiner says the brigade has been nothing but supportive.

“I just feel like one of the boys, they don't treat me any differently because I'm a female,” she said. “If I'm unable to do something, I ask for help and there's two or three lining up to give me a hand.”

Now, as she settles into her leadership role, Frankensteiner has her sights set on recruitment – particularly getting more women involved.

“We’ve got something in the pipeline at the moment, I want to try to be the face of trying to get other ladies to join, like myself,” she said. “If I can do it, they can do it as well. Maybe even one day we’ll get a truckload of females out to beat the boys.”

She hopes her story will show others what’s possible.

“I want to get my story across to show the other girls out there what I can do, what I've done, and what I'm capable of,” she said. “I love what I do and love the environment with all the banter and stuff that goes on.”

“And the stuff that I've been able to do and see – I wouldn't have been able to do that as a normal civilian.”