Latest Fire Services Response Times Published Online

The response times of Victoria’s fire services varies widely across the state according to the latest data for the March quarter released by CFA and MFB

The data is now released every quarter giving further transparency to all Victorians to see how their own fire services meets their communities needs.

Figures for January-March, which are now available online, show the MFB:

• Responded to 95.8 per cent of structure fires within 7.7 minutes, higher than the MFB and government target of 90 per cent
• Responded to 95.5 per cent of Emergency Medical Response within 9.2 minutes, higher than the target of 90 per cent.

For CFA brigades, the Customer Service Delivery Standard compliance rate is 88 per cent. This rate is a measure of the first truck arriving on scene, regardless of brigade area.

The March-quarter figures show CFA brigades continuing to perform well across a number of urban and rural environments, however continued to showcase the great variance in response time depending on where Victorians lived. The results showed 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 31 and 100 per cent
• Responding to 89 per cent of fires in all other urban areas with the standard response time of 10 minutes
• Responding to 100 per cent of fires in areas with predominantly natural surroundings within the standard response time of 20 minutes.

The Andrews Labor Government has asked the Inspector-General for Emergency Management to implement an independent assurance process, which will ensure the ongoing integrity of response-time data.

This will also include analysis of the data and measures 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

“This is the fourth set of data released and it is showing areas where the fire services are simply not keeping up with the growth our state is experiencing. This isn’t good enough.”

“Our fire services are still organised in a way that worked in the 1950s but doesn't work today. If we’re serious about community safety then we must make changes and bring our fire services into the 21^st century.”