Kiewa Fire Brigade has failed to respond to its last three daytime emergency calls – a grass fire, tree fire and alarm – because its members are away working in Albury-Wodonga between 9am and 5pm.

“Other brigades responded and our truck stayed in the station,” brigade captain Aaron Wallace said.

The brigade is planning a letter box drop and future community meeting to highlight the problem and tell what Mr Wallace calls “cold, hard truths”.

“And the cold hard truth is if you dial triple-0 and call for a fire truck, there’s a chance that our three vehicles are still going to be in the shed with the doors closed because we haven’t the daytime responders and that’s pretty scary stuff,” he said.

Mr Wallace said the brigade had 80 members and could easily fill the truck after hours, but these people simply weren’t around during the day.

“We’ve got plenty of members, dedicated members, but they can’t drop what they’re doing in their workplace and travel all the way over here, 20 minutes, to jump on a truck,” he said.

“By that time a house is on the ground, you’ve got no hope of saving a house.”

Once a bush fire brigade answering about 10 calls annually, the Kiewa group now received up to 70 calls a year of varying types, like car accidents, gas leaks, house fires and grass fires.

Mr Wallace hoped people who were in Kiewa and Tangambalanga during working hours might consider becoming volunteers, particularly women in the community.

“They might think the fire brigade’s an old men’s club but the CFA’s gone well past that,” he said.

“We’ve got thousands of females within the CFA who are on trucks fighting fires.”

Kiewa Fire Brigade planned to conduct its letter box drop within weeks and would welcome any ideas or strategies.

“The community itself needs to get behind the brigade,” Mr Wallace said.

“Without the community support and the volunteers we don’t have a brigade.”