Country Fire Authority

Country Fire Authority

Official Seal and Emblem of the Country Fire Authority
Established 1945
Location
Region served
 CFA has a State headquarters and 5 Regions across Victoria. Within these Regions are 21 CFA Districts. [1]
Services Combatant Authority for Fire, Rescue and Hazmat
Members
 1222 brigades[2]
Staff
 2100+ paid staff
Volunteers
 55000+
Website www.cfa.vic.gov.au

Country Fire Authority, or CFA, is the fire service that provides firefighting and other emergency services to all of the country areas and regional townships within the state of Victoria, Australia, as well as large portions of the outer suburban areas and growth corridors of Melbourne not covered by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. In the event of an emergency in Australia, emergency services including the CFA can be called by dialling Australia's primary emergency service number, Triple Zero 000 or the secondary emergency service number of 112 which can only be dialled on a digital mobile phone.

CFA, as it is commonly known, draws the majority of its officers and members from the local community on a volunteer basis. The CFA employs professional career firefighters to support volunteer fire fighters in areas which are more heavily urbanized or more densely populated. These stations are manned on a full-time basis.

The CFA works closely with the other emergency services within Victoria namely being the State Emergency Service, Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria and the Metropolitan Fire Brigade working together with unique skill sets and resources for the betterment and safety of all Victorians.

The current Chief Executive Officer of CFA's board is Lucinda Nolan, and the operational Chief Officer of CFA is Joe Buffone.

The CFA falls under the portfolio of the Minister Emergency Services, Jane Garrett.

History

Victoria has long been served by volunteer fire brigades, the first of which were established in the 1850s. The CFA was established in 1945 recognising a need to support and sustain existing volunteer fire brigades.[3]

CFA operates under the Country Fire Authority Act of 1958, its amendments and Regulations. This legislation was brought about by significant bushfires during the period 1939-1944 which killed 114 people and destroyed nearly 1400 homes while also damaging large areas of the state and destroying significant amounts of stock. Subsequent investigations showed the lack of a cohesive firefighting agency outside the central metropolitan area and CFA was born on 2 April 1945. Many of its brigades however were established in the 19th century or early in the 20th century.[4]

CFA is one of the world's largest volunteer based firefighting organisations. It services more than 150,000 square kilometres and 3.3 million people, and currently has approximately 35,000 operational volunteers, who are assisted by some 1000 career firefighters and 1,100 support staff.

Funding

CFA volunteers at a fire in a school classroom.

Since July 2013, Fire Services in Victoria have been funded by a fire service levy on council rates. In the past CFA was funded on a 77.5%/22.5% split where Insurance companies provide 77.5% of the funding through fire levies on insurance policies and the Victorian Government provides 22.5% of the funding.[5] In 2006/2007 Insurance companies provided $180.8m and $51.1m was provided from the State Government. The CFA also receives some funding from the provision of goods and services to external bodies. Additional funding from the government is also provided during long duration bushfires.

Individual brigades receive further funds from local councils, from their own fundraising activities and from donations from the community. Some fire brigades hold large amounts of community funds and investments. This money funds competitions between local and interstate brigades. It can also be used to purchase equipment.

CFA Brigades

Fire Brigades

Logo of the Country Fire Authority

There are 1209 brigades (1023 rural, 252 urban and some just brigades) operating out of 1,186 rural, urban and integrated (volunteers supported by paid firefighters) fire stations[6] with more than 2300 vehicles across 5 Regions and 21 Districts in eight Regions.[7] The Brigades are split up into Regions, Districts then Groups with each division having less brigades in each, however in Urban locations the Region may be the same as the District. There are Five "Regions", Twenty One "Districts" and many Groups. All brigades are in a District and a Region, but may not fall into a group. The CFA's Regions are:[8]

Coast Guard Brigades

In 2005 the CFA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Australian Volunteer Coast Guard to create CFA Coast Guard brigades.[9] All Victorian Coast Guard Vessels will have CFA Radios installed, EAS (Emergency Alerting System) pagers as used by the CFA as well as basic firefighting tools including a small pump and hoses.[10] Additionally all Coast Guard members are to receive basic CFA firefighting training and some land brigades will receive marine firefighting training.

CFA resources

Vehicles

CFA Type 3 Pumper at the 2009 Australian International Airshow

The CFA owned vehicles consist of nearly 1300 Tankers, 250 Pumpers, 7 Aerial Appliances (telescopic ladders), 30 Rescue Units and various other special purpose and Command and Support vehicles. This fleet is supplemented by more than 1,400 brigade owned vehicles. Brigade owned vehicles are bought and paid for by the individual brigades and communities (sometimes with the assistance of Victorian Government grants) to allow extension of brigade firefighting capability. There are a total of over 4000 vehicles in operation.[11]

Communications

See also: Emergency_Services_Telecommunications_Authority § Victoria and Country Fire Authority Dispatch

In the state of Victoria, emergency service dispatch and call-taking for Police, Ambulance, and both rural and metropolitan fire services, is handled by the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA). ESTA operates over three sites, located in the Melbourne CBD, East Burwood, and Mount Helen, in Ballarat. When a person calls 000 for emergency response within Victoria, the Telstra operator will connect him or her to the relevant ESTA facility, where a calltaker will collect information from the caller, and enter this into the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system. Using this information, a dispatcher will respond with the appropriate emergency services or resources. Services are often already being notified by the dispatcher while the call-taker is still obtaining further information or giving advice, such as guiding the caller through CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation).

ESTA is also responsible for Victorian State Emergency Service call-taking and dispatch, although this service cannot be contacted by dialling 000, as SES calls are not considered to be life-threatening.

Many ESTA practices and protocols are standardised across all emergency services agencies, and all agencies use the same computer network. The result is complete and instantaneous information sharing between emergency services.[12]

Most CFA firefighters are issued an EAS (Emergency Alerting System) Pager[13] These pagers allow Emergency, Non-Emergency and Administration messages to be sent to members either individually or by groups of people. Brigades are dispatched based on various factors including the time of day, location and type of fire or incident. Although each fire brigade has a primary response zone, other neighboring brigades or specific appliances may be responded as support to the primary brigade. This is especially the case where specialist skills or equipment are needed, such as for road accident rescue or very large structural fires.

When the emergency dispatcher is notified of a fire or incident, he or she sends an Emergency-type message to volunteers or CFA career firefighters via EAS Pager. When this is received by the brigade members, firefighters respond to their station and from there will "turn out" firefighting appliances. While these calls usually come from VicFire (ESTA dispatch) as a result of a call to 000, brigades or appliances may also be responded by other dispatch agencies such as D24 (Victoria Police dispatch) or at the request of incident controllers. Other emergency service providers such as Ambulance Victoria and the Victorian State Emergency Service may also request that CFA brigades be responded to an incident.

The CFA has 1,200 base radios, 5,800 vehicle radios, 3,000 hand held radios, 35,000 EAS pagers, 58 satellite terminals and 10,700 pre-conference interceptors.[11]

Training

The CFA operates six major training facilities: the South Eastern Training Ground (SETG) in Bangholme, Penshurst in Western Victoria, Longerenong (near Horsham), Bendigo, the Gippsland Fire Training Complex in West Sale,[14] and Wangaratta. SETG near Carrum is the major training facility for outer metropolitan brigades, which includes lecture facilities as well as flammable liquid spill, gas attack and breathing apparatus training areas.[15]

All members are required to undertake Wildfire "minimum skills" training before turning out in a fire truck. This consists of five basic training modules including:[16]

Major incidents

The CFA has been involved in a number of major fires over the years where lives have been lost, including:

The CFA has also been involved in combatting interstate fires such as the Sydney fires in 2002 and the 2003 Canberra bushfires.

Activities

The CFA is involved in other non-firefighting operations. The CFA has a leading role in Prevention, Preparedness, Response and Recovery of Fires and other Incidents.[17] The CFA is responsible for all fires on Private land in Victoria outside of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade area including Structure Fires and Bushfires. The CFA has a shared responsibility for Rescues with the Victorian State Emergency Service. In addition to its Response activities members also run prevention programs such as Fire Ready Victoria[18] and Brigades in Schools.

A burn-off for fire prevention

The CFA is also responsible for specialist response functions, including -

United Firefighters Union and the CFA Volunteers' Association

Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria (VFBV) represents the 55000 CFA volunteers who constitute more than 97% of CFA’s workforce. It is established under Victorian law, the Country Fire Authority Act, to represent the volunteers on all matters that affect their welfare and efficiency.[19]

United Firefighters Union of Australia (UFU). The UFU represents career firefighters.[20] Volunteer firefighters can join UFU as Associate Members. The UFU funds valuable research into firefighting technologies which benefit both career/volunteer firefighters.

VFBV is responsible for running the annual Urban and Rural State Championships. These competitions involve brigades from around the state competing in a range of events which are based on many past and some current fire fighting practices.

Firestar rose

The official rose of the CFA is the "Firestar", which was introduced in 2010. Between 2011 and 2015 sales of the rose raised more than $69,000 for the CFA.[21]

See also

References

External links

Related links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, March 12, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.