The head of the CFS has expressed concerns over the increasing demands being placed on volunteer firefighters to assist the SA Ambulance Service in responding to medical incidents.

The State Government has launched a taskforce to look at whether firefighters should be sent to medical emergencies to bolster the South Australia Ambulance in times of peak demand.

The move is in response to the death of a man of a 47 year old man in Adelaide on Monday.

The man called 000 at around 5.20 after experiencing chest pain. He was alone in his car after pulling over next next to ANZAC Highway.

At the time SA Ambulance was in 'Opstat White', a status declared by SA Ambulance when they no longer have the operational capacity, capability or resources to respond maintain effective service delivery for high acuity cases.

After thirty-five minutes a passerby noticed the man in an unresponsive state in his car and starting giving him CPR.

A second call was made to the emergency services and the call was upgraded from priority two to priority one.

An ambulance arrived 42 minutes after the man's initial call but tragically he could not be revived.

The incident immediately prompted calls for firefighters to be called to similar incidents in the future when the ambulance service is experiencing high demand.

CFS Chief Officer Mark Jones says in country areas CFS volunteers have already attended approximately 1,000 medical incidents in the past year, including 14 this week.

He says the volunteers who are responding to these incidents are doing so outside of the scope of their standard duties, in their own time without pay, and without the same support as paramedics.

The volunteers are not given specialist medical training and no additional mental health support.

He also expressed concern that these incidents have often happened in small communities where the volunteers are turning up to an incident where they know the casualty.

"The CFS is not funded in any way for these non-statutory roles and, in the interests of patient safety and the mental well-being of CFS responders, a higher level of training and support would seem to be vital as a starter." Mr Jones said.

"Our volunteers are routinely called upon to attend traumatic events beyond the scope of their firefighting duties and these jobs fall outside of most people's expectations when they join the service."

"I have seen the number of SAAS assist jobs that our volunteers are expected to attend grow significantly. This is something that has occurred without any formal agreement or additional support for our volunteers doing an already tough job."

Many CFS volunteers have the expertise of dealing with distressing scenes and working closely with paramedics due to their training in Road Crash Rescue, where they will often need to remove a casualty from a crash in a safe and timely manner.

However, Mr Jones said while these volunteers are trained in first aid, and have many specialist skills, there is a large difference between providing CPR and addressing someone's underlying clinical health issues.

"There is already a great reliance on CFS volunteers to provide SAAS with assistance, particularly in regional SA, with jobs like difficult extrications, patient lifts, resuscitation and other medical emergencies."

"Our firefighters are keen to play any role which helps them to support their neighbours. However, it is in these small communities where the trauma of these sorts of jobs hits hardest - our volunteers are regularly turning up to an incident where they personally know the casualty and are having to deal with the mental trauma of this."

CFS volunteers, staff and their immediate family have access to Stress Prevention and Management (SPAM) services, which offers counselling and post-incident stress and trauma support.

The Ambulance stations at Yankalilla and Goolwa are staffed by volunteer ambulance officers who have undergone significant training and who donate 30 hours of more of their time per month to the service.

The SA Ambulance Service and the Country Fire Service are both recruiting for additional volunteers.