The Romsey Fire Brigade was founded on the 24th November, 1884 and remained very much independent and self reliant through until 1906, when it obtained registration with the then Country Fire Brigades Board. Equipment then was very basic; a bucket line for a fire in town and beaters and branches for bushfires, but eventually subscriptions were raised for the purchase of a reel and hose. For some time Romsey actually had both a town brigade and a bush brigade in co-existence. The bush brigade had a stronger membership base and was substancially better organised and it finally absorbed the town brigade in 1939, to form a single entity.

During 1940, the CFBB had attempted to form brigades into a number of clusters to enable them to take a co-ordinated approach to fighting larger bushfires, but these overtures were rejected by the State Government. However, a number of  brigades of the Macedon Ranges, including Romsey, Woodend and Sunbury, chose to adopt the 'Group' method anyway and achieved considerable success in fighting local fires in this manner.  

 In April, 1945, Romsey achieved affiliation with the newly created Country Fire Authority, which has risen to become one of the largest emergency service organisations in the world. Our brigade has always been adaptive and accepting of change and our objective is to ensure our members are correctly trained and have the best equipment that we are able to provide.

Examples of this are when the brigade identified the need for a pumper to meet the needs of the developing town, whereas CFA did not share this view. We subsequently purchased and refurbished an ex-MFB pumper that proved more than adequate for the task and the need for such an appliance was eventually recognised by CFA and it was replaced with a CFA issued pumper. Road Accident Rescue equipment was obtained at one stage for brigade use, but carriage of this gear was not authorised by statutory authorities and it has subsequently been sold off and this service is still provided in our area by the SES. An International D1610 4x4 cab chassis that belonged to QLD State Rail was later purchased and became our Tanker A. This truck was a favourite and served us well for a number of years until replaced in 2000 with our current Tanker 2. We have purchased and equipped a trailer with all the items needed at various incidents we attend to make the job a little easier. Our vehicles and equipment are all available to support the other brigades within our Group and do so on a regular basis. Both Tanker 1 and our pumper have been sheduled for replacement in the short term.     

Romsey Tanker 1 is a State Task Force appliance and so could be deployed on intrastate and interstate duties at any time, as required by CFA. As previously mentioned, on these occasions crewing is provided on a composite basis from within the Group. In recent years Romsey Tanker 1 has been deployed to several major fires in New South Wales, as well as to The North East, Gippsland, The Grampians, Brisbane Ranges and many others, in additon to maintaining coverage of our local area. At times during the last fire season we had members crewing two tankers and a Strike Team Leader vehicle simultaneously.