Message from Chief Officer Jason Heffernan

 

While many families enjoyed feasts, festivities and frolicking in the summer sun over the festive period, many of our members were busy addressing incidents throughout the state.

 

These selfless acts reflect the commitment of our members, who have sacrificed their time with family and friends even after two years of COVID restrictions.

CFA members have continued to provide support and protection to their communities when in need, responding to more than 1,500 incidents from Christmas Day until 3 January, ranging from grass and scrub fires (more than 300), structure fires (more than 100), road and high angle rescues (76), non-structure fires (more than 200), Hazmat incidents (26).

This included providing support to Fire Rescue Victoria at several grassfires in metropolitan and semi-urban areas including Maribyrnong, Cheltenham, Pakenham and Mount Cottrell/Truganina.

Many warnings were issued, including five Emergency Warnings (for the Langkoop/Poolaijelo fire and Venus Bay fire) and 28 Watch and Act messages.

On my Facebook page you can view images from my visit with Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp to the Horsham Incident Control Centre, CFA's District 17 offices and the staging area at Langkoop for the fire that was burning at Poolaijelo

It was inspiring to hear firsthand accounts of the tremendous work of our firefighters battling this fire. Volunteers came from across the western region, from as far as Daylesford and Ballarat, to help support local crews with the blaze.

Over the festive period we worked closely with our emergency services partners including SA Country Fire Service, Forest Fire Management Victoria and Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) to contain many fires. It is impressive to see how our CFA members support, interact and work with all other agencies and services. This ultimately results in well informed communities and a successful firefight.

FRV recently introduced the GARS grass and scrub fire response for the FRV fire districts. This resulted in the CFA providing significant numbers of strike teams to areas as close as five kilometres from the Melbourne CBD. This again demonstrates CFA’s capability to support other agencies and the adaptability of our members.

Our performance highlighted the professionalism of firefighting force is evident by the high success rate of suppression of the fires whilst maintaining the safety of all CFA members. Hitting the fires hard and fast has been very successful.

Safety is paramount and the training and experience of our members has ensured everyone came home safe to their families. Our crews also had the added pressure of COVID 19 protocols. The attention to detail and personal safety has ensured any spread of the virus has been minimised within CFA and enabled us to maintain our ongoing capability.

As well our Region and District staff have done great work to support our volunteers. The behind the scenes work required is critical to keep our firefighting force doing what it does best.

There is still a long way to go this summer. This first heat wave has demonstrated that CFA is prepared and ready.

Continue to look after yourself and each other.

 

Submitted by	Chief Officer Jason Heffernan