IT'S GETTING HOT IN HERE: SPARKS IGNITE BETWEEN VICTORIAN FIREFIGHTERS

Victorian firefighters are in deep turmoil as a result of outdated geographical boundaries, where previously rural areas have become densely populated towns, but still fall within ‘country’ firefighting jurisdiction, with a lack of volunteer training fuelling the fire.

For close to seventy years, geographical boundaries based on town populations govern where the CFA and MFB are allowed to practise.

The Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) are made up of trained, employed firefighters, who when dispatched have a maximum of 7.7 minutes to reach an incident, from first notice to arriving on scene.

The Country Fire Authority (CFA) is a volunteer-based emergency service priding itself on nearly 60,000 volunteers, supported by over two thousand paid employees.

CFA units have an overall average response time of twelve and a half minutes from first call to arrival on scene.

MFB career firefighter Tony Mason says CFA response times aren’t good enough.

“The major issue is that it’s about community safety, and the volunteers aren’t giving the coverage that they need,” said Mr Mason, a firefighter for over thirty years.

Mr Mason believes many CFA stations have inadequate responses mainly due to lax regulations on volunteer training, resulting in consequences for the community.

“CFA volunteers’ skillsets aren’t the same.”

“There’s residents in the community that are covered by volunteer stations that aren’t getting the coverage they should be; they’re not getting a firetruck there within seven minutes,” he said.

“The professional fire service is getting there and putting the fire out within seven minutes, and ninety per cent of the time that fire is to room of origin. If it’s from a volunteer base, a lot of the time that fire is not room of origin, it’s totally involved, the house is burnt to the ground.”

Mr Mason believes that on top of more funding for volunteer education and training, pushing CFA zoning boundaries out further will ease pressure within Victorian firefighting services.

“The actual boundaries haven’t changed for so many years, so with the amount of infrastructure now, we really need more stations to be permanent, full-time stations,” said Mr Mason.

These thoughts are echoed by professional Boronia CFA firefighter Andrew*, agreeing “the boundaries are definitely something that needs to be changed.”

As Melbourne grows, borders need to be updated and extended, says Andrew.

“We need more integrated units working with volunteers… to allow for a better response, so if a suburb has a certain amount of infrastructure or certain population, there is a need for more full-time firefighters.”

The recent resignation of CFA CEO Paul Smith may herald some improvements.

“We’re all for change, it just comes down to time,” Mr Mason said.

*Andrew requested for his full name not to be disclosed.