Today marks what could be a significant change in national emergency response services.
Omarama is a trial site for what St John and the New Zealand Fire Service (NZFS) are calling ''enhanced first response''.
The Omarama Volunteer Fire Brigade's first response unit is to be turned into an ''enhanced first response'' unit.
The enhanced first response team would be turned out to more medical and emergency calls and be given more training than a normal first response team.
The six-month trial is the result of talks triggered last year by former Omarama Volunteer Fire Brigade Chief Fire Officer Howard Williams.
He called the trial ''excellent'' and it was what he wanted for his brigade.
In June, Mr Williams said he was concerned a St John-controlled emergency call centre was withholding calls from his brigade's first response unit.
For about 10 years, the brigade battled to get more notifications so it could deliver aid to its community faster than an ambulance based in Twizel, about 20 minutes away, or Kurow, about 30 minutes away.
St John's response at the time to Mr Williams' concerns was that the formal memorandum of understanding between the NZFS and the ambulance service had clear definitions of events first response units could turn up to: not life-threatening incidents, those requiring transport only, and those in which the patient or caller specifically requested the fire first response not be dispatched, as can occur when the patient is known to the local fire brigade, and/or the problem was so sensitive the patient chooses to have a response only from St John.
St John Southland Otago district operations manager Pauline Buchanan said from today the brigade would attend more emergency responses.
Omarama's first response members would undergo additional training alongside St John personnel from both Twizel and Kurow.
