Some of WA’s most courageous heroes have been recognised for their service at the 2026 WA Fire and Emergency Services Awards in Perth.

The event saw 17 awards handed out across individual and team categories, including the inaugural WA Fire and Emergency Service Young Person of the Year Award.

Winners came from across the State, from Esperance on the south coast to Dampier in the Pilbara region.

Marine Rescue Esperance volunteer David Macmahon was one of the award winners, receiving the Marine Rescue Individual Achievement Award for his heroism in saving a man who had been swept into sea at the notorious rocks of Salmon Beach in Esperance in January.

Mr Macmahon jumped in after a tourist fell into the water, a fate no one had survived before, reaching the man within 20 minutes and staying with him on his board until help arrived on a boat, taking the pair to safety.

Mr Macmahon said he jumped at the chance to save a life in the historically deadly spot.

“We’ve never done a rescue there, they’ve always been recoveries, they’ve been washed off the rocks and drowned, and we’re unfortunately searching for a body,” he said.

“This one we had a chance to get, I said ‘I’ll meet you there, you grab a board, I’ll grab a wetsuit, I’ll see you there’, and I basically jumped in the swell, jumped in the ocean, and paddled out, he was still alive.”

He said he wanted to use the award as an opportunity to raise awareness of the dangers of the ocean-adjacent rocks across the south coast.

“There’s no awareness of how dangerous it is, a lot of it is the black rocks, but a lot of it is unpredictable swells, swells from different angles, different places,” he said.

“This particular spot is a beautiful spot to go and look at and unfortunately Instagram and fishermen think it’s a good spot, you actually catch more fish off the beach.

“It was a year and three days before we had to recover a body from there at exactly the same spot.”

Also recognised on the night was Jurien Bay volunteer firefighter Danielle Ryder, who was given the inaugural WAFES Young Person of the Year Award for her work designing and coordinating training for cadets to advance to adult brigades.

Ms Ryder said her program had seen 19 cadets make the step up, which helps address a shortage in the Wheatbelt town.

“Being in a regional town, there’s a big drop off especially for our children who want to go on to university and need to move back down to the city,” she said.

“So keeping them in town, and we have a big gap from like our 18-year-olds up to like the 45-year-olds, I’d say, just providing them something that they have meaning in so that they want to stay around.

“It’s proved to work quite well so far.”