Today the Country Fire Authority is releasing its incident response data from the fourth quarter of the 2018/19 financial year and the first quarter of the 2019/20 year.
The most recent data set from July to September 2019 showed CFA brigades responding to 9,830 incidents, of which 5,013 required an emergency response.
In 87 per cent of emergencies, the community received a fire service within the standard response time, which was broadly consistent with previous quarters.
The release of Quarter Four data was delayed while CFA and emergency service partners analysed and considered limitations in the data caused by protected industrial action at the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA).
CFA has only published the Quarter Four data which was not impacted by industrial action, therefore previous quarters and targets are incomparable.
Nonetheless, for the emergency incidents between April and June 2019 not impacted by industrial action, CFA responded to 86 per cent of emergencies within the target response time.
CFA Chief Officer and CEO Steve Warrington said both data sets highlighted the hard work of CFA members, but also demonstrated the continued danger fire poses to the community.
“These thousands of incidents represent many more thousands of volunteer and career firefighters dedicating their time and service to the Victorian community,” he said.
“Unfortunately despite our best efforts, eight people tragically died in residential fires in CFA areas over the full six month period.
“That’s eight lives cut tragically short and eight people who family, friends and communities are grieving.
“While a lot of focus is rightly placed on bushfire safety at this time of year, this reminds us that residential fires can be just as deadly and devastating to our community.
“As always, we encourage everyone to install smoke alarms and check the batteries regularly,” he said.
The results
Quarter Four (April – June) 2018/19
For CFA brigades, the Customer Service Delivery Standard compliance rate was 86 per cent. This rate is a measure of the first truck arriving on scene, regardless of brigade area.
The Quarter Four figures not impacted by the industrial action show CFA brigades continuing to perform well across a variety of urban and rural environments, including:
- CFA responded to 88 per cent of fires in significant urban areas within the standard response time of 8 minutes. The individual results for this measure ranged between 40 and 100 per cent.
- CFA responded to 84 per cent of fires in all other urban areas within the standard response time of 10 minutes.
- No data was recorded for fires in areas with predominantly natural surroundings.
Quarter One (July – September) 2019/20
For CFA brigades, the Customer Service Delivery Standard compliance rate was 87 per cent.
- CFA responded to 81 per cent of fires in significant urban areas within the standard response time of 8 minutes
- CFA responded to 73 per cent of fires in all other urban areas within the standard response time of 10 minutes
- CFA responded to 90 per cent of fires in areas with predominantly natural surroundings within the standard response time of 20 minutes.
Response data is reported by Hazard Class, which defines the risk type for a given area. Each brigade area may contain multiple Hazard Classes. Each Hazard Class has a Service Delivery Standard, a predefined response time target for brigades attending emergency events.
