Before the drill and meeting, the crews helped Tamworth Captain Gerry Cannon celebrate an unprecedented 60 years of service to the station ahead of his impending retirement next month.

But then it was back to the business of keeping citizens and festival goers safe.

NSW Fire and Rescue Tamworth Superintendent Tom Cooper said that while the fire crews have to do two training drills a month, it is rare for them to combine with the SES.

“They joined us and did a presentation to acquaint us with evacuation procedures for council operated areas, parks and camp grounds for the festival,” Superintendent Cooper said.

The Tamworth and West Tamworth crews will again join forces for the festival, and were already out and about on the Riverside campgrounds on Wednesday reminding festival goers to remain safe at all times, especially when cooking.

The crews did a walk through of the camping facilities checking that everyone had the compulsory working smoke alarms, as well as handing out wooden spoons to all campers with a friendly reminder.

The Keep Looking While Your’e Cooking campaign was kicked off last year and is another way to ensure safety is at the forefront of campers minds.

“We give them a spoon to cook with and then if they get distracted by kids, or pets, or the phone or door rings then they either turn everything off or take the spoon with them as a reminder that they have something on the stove,” Superintendent Cooper said.

“With thousands of people coming we don’t want a fire to spoil the festival.” 

The crews will be working split shifts during the festival with stations fully manned until 2.30am each day.