The officers went to 961 fires and answered 1659 non-fire rescue calls including motor vehicle accidents, medical emergencies and rescues of children and pets.

Adding to the tally of next year's results will be the rescue of brave five-year-old Emiliana Barry.

Her case highlights the fact that in the ACT, the role of the firefighter extends way beyond battling blazes.

"I think some people are surprised that Fire and Rescue is responsible for non-fire rescues," ACT Fire and Rescue chief officer Mark Brown said.

Emiliana, a prep student at Canberra Girls' Grammar, had the ultimate what-I-did-on-the-school-holidays story to tell her friends.

She was rescued by firefighters after becoming stuck in play equipment at Weston Park during the September school holidays.

The young girl had slipped while walking around the elevated water play section of the park and got her leg stuck fast between the concrete and a steel hand rail.

To add to the drama, she was at the park with her grandmother from Ireland, Pauline, and her 16-month-old brother Arthur while her parents were in Sydney following the birth of their third child, Adaline.

For about 20 minutes, a passerby held up Emiliana to relieve the pressure on her stuck leg while she stood tippy-toe on a borrowed esky with her other leg.

A crew from ACT Fire and Rescue arrived - much to the excitement of the multitude of holidaying kids in the park - and within minutes had Emiliana freed, after using a large hydraulic cutter to snap the steel barrier.

The officers also gave her a firefighter teddy bear - or a "trauma teddy" - with all fire trucks carrying them for such an occasion.

Emiliana never cried or complained once and the officers kept her calm along the way, her grandmother told her parents, Canberra ophthalmologist Dr Richard Barry and his wife Lucinda.

"She was just happy she got a teddy bear from the fire brigade," Dr Barry said, with a laugh.

"They have a thing called 'show and wonder' at school so she took the teddy to show and wonder and told her classmates the story about the rescue.

"My mum was really impressed by how the firefighters kept Millie calm and distracted while they rescued her. She said they were really good with her."

ACT Fire and Rescue chief officer Mark Brown said last financial year local firefighters attended 1669 non-fire rescue calls including1182 road accident rescue operations and 179 other rescues including animal rescues.

They also assisted in 298 medical emergencies.

Mr Brown said the ACT Fire Brigade was renamed ACT Fire and Rescue in 2011, to better reflect its diverse capabilities..

But, still, the general community could underestimate the scope of the service.

"They think fire brigade go to fires and police go to these incidents and paramedics go to those. But who does all the motor vehicle accidents extrications in the ACT? Well, it's Fire and Rescue," he said.

ACT Fire and Rescue is responsible for all rescues in the built-up, urban areas of Canberra but will also assist ACT Policing with search and rescue operations in the surrounding national parks.

"But in terms of road accidents, animal rescue, collapsed buildings or collapsed part of buildings, confined space rescue, those sort of things, that's Fire and Rescue," Mr Brown said.

And, yes, there have been some cats-stuck-in-trees rescues.

"We get a spate of animal rescues. The public in general are always interested in that. Cats or birds stuck in trees or drains. Dogs stuck in drains. We had one a couple of weeks ago where there was a cat stuck in the wall cavity of a house. So all sorts of things like that," Mr Brown said.

"Often we can coax the animal out with food but occasionally we have to put one of our search cameras into the cavity or drain to find out exactly where the animal is and sometimes it requires busting holes in walls or jack-hammering up footpaths and things like that. That happens quite regularly."

The firefighters need to be empathetic dealing with people in high-stress situations including cutting them out of car wrecks and particularly when it comes to children.

"All the trucks have got trauma teddies in them and it's just to calm the kids down while the firefighters are working around them. Because obviously it can be very scary," Mr Brown said.

"We often have kids with their fingers stuck in bath plugholes. We've got to use some pretty scary cutting equipment if it comes to that and we need to have the kids distracted and thinking about something else while firefighters are cutting quite close to them."

All 340 officers in Fire and Rescue are trained extensively to attend whatever comes their way.

"Because we're a reasonably small service, the firefighters have to do everything," Mr Brown said.

"Here in Canberra, firefighters have to respond to a wide range of emergencies, so they need to be highly trained."