Victoria Country Fire Authority lashed over out-of-date information on hotline

THE Country Fire Authority has come under pressure to get its warning systems right after residents received 11-day-old inaccurate information.

THE Country Fire Authority has come under pressure from the Brumby government to get its warning systems right after residents who called a bushfire hotline during a fire received 11-day-old inaccurate information.

Acting Premier Rob Hulls yesterday called the CFA's latest failing "unacceptable" and ordered an inquiry into how it happened just weeks after the agency's website crashed on the first 40-degree day since Black Saturday.

The CFA appeared to contradict itself when forced to defend its warning system, saying its procedures were "perfect" and the mistake was human error, while adding procedures were "unclear" for the relevant person to follow.

Anxious residents in the state's north called the Victorian bushfire hotline -- run jointly by the CFA and the Department of Sustainability and Environment -- on Monday night after a blaze broke out in a dry lakebed near Wangaratta, sending up plumes of smoke and burning more than 580 hectares.

The CFA put out an emergency warning on its website but the person in charge of updating the after-hours message on the hotline failed to do so before leaving for the day after the fire was contained. As a result, residents were given information about a completely unrelated fire that had occurred on Christmas Eve -- the last time the hotline was updated.

Mr Hulls said yesterday the situation was "just not good enough" and people living in areas threatened by fire needed to be confident they were getting the latest information.

"Inaccurate information is totally unacceptable," the acting premier said. "Out-of-date information is totally unacceptable. I have asked for a report for what has occurred."

Opposition Leader Ted Ballieu said the out-of-date hotline information was the latest example of the "fundamental incompetence" of the Brumby government when it came to fire preparation.

CFA state duty officer Peter Baker said it appeared the person in charge of updating the hotline had failed to do so on Monday night.

"The system itself works perfectly but we have had some human error that has resulted in information not being put up on the Victorian information line in a timely manner," Mr Baker said.

"The procedure is such that it is not clear to people" responsible for updating the information, "so the situation occurred yesterday where this recorded message information did not occur", he said.

Mr Baker later clarified his position, saying the procedures were fine, they just were not followed, and the training of information officers was being reviewed and upgraded.

"The public should have confidence in the system," Mr Baker said. "We have confidence in the system. In this case, the Victorian bushfire information line did not fail -- we had some human error that let us down in getting information into the system."