Latest Fire Services Data Available To The Public

The latest set of fire-services response times has been released providing more transparency for Victorians.

Data from the Metropolitan Fire Brigade and the Country Fire Authority is now published every quarter. Figures for the three months leading up to September show the MFB met its key targets, including:

• responding to 93.9 per cent of structure fires within the 7.7 minute target, an improvement on the previous quarter. The individual results for this measure ranged between 66.7 to 100 per cent
• responding to 95.4 per cent of Emergency Medical Response incidents within the 9.2 minute target.

For CFA brigades, the Customer Service Delivery Standard compliance rate is 87 per cent. This rate is a measure of the first truck arriving on scene, regardless of brigade area.

The latest data shows response-time standards for CFA are continuing to vary depending on the type of environment in which they are operating, including:

• responding to 88 per cent of fires in significant urban areas within the standard response time of 8 minutes, up from 79 per cent during the previous quarter. Critically individual results for this measure ranged drastically between 8 and 100 per cent
• responding to 91 per cent of fires in all other urban areas within the standard response time of 10 minutes, up from 89 per cent in the previous quarter
• responding to 100 per cent of fires in areas with predominantly natural surroundings within the standard response time of 20 minutes.

Earlier this year the government asked the Inspector-General for Emergency Management to implement an independent assurance process to ensure the ongoing integrity of response-time data.

This includes analysis of the data to inform the development of future response strategies.

The complete MFB data can be viewed at: http://www.mfb.vic.gov.au/About-Us/Our-Performance.html

The complete CFA data can be viewed at: http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/about/emergency-response-times/

Quotes attributable to Minister for Emergency Services James Merlino

“These figures show there is a great variance in the service Victorians receive depending on where they live. Our fire services reforms are central in solving this and in ensuring the community is safe while this growth continues.”

“Our reforms give more funding and independence to volunteers while at the same time providing all of our fire services the support they need to keep Victorians safe.”