CFA boost: Volunteers demand $200m to upgrade their ageing truck fleet

Cutbacks have left CFA volunteers fighting fires with the oldest truck fleet in the nation.

Fire fleet: CFA trucks gathered to defend Corryong, as volunteers demand $200m to upgrade their ageing trucks. Picture: Jason Edwards

VOLUNTEERS and CFA fire chief Steve Warrington are calling on the Andrews Government to urgently deliver almost $200 million to upgrade the state’s ageing firefighting fleet of tankers and pumpers, a third of which cannot respond to major bushfires.

The CFA has the oldest firefighting fleet in the nation, with The Weekly Times previously reporting 522 of its 1942 tankers and pumpers are more than 20 years old, an age at which most other states replace them.

Yet while Premier Daniel Andrews and his ministers have praised volunteer firefighters’ recent efforts, they have failed to upgrade the CFA fleet.

Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria has been calling on governments since 2010 to double the CFA’s truck annual replacement budget, from $14.4 million to at least $29 million. Given the age of the fleet VFBV estimates the increased funding would need to be maintained for at least 13 years, at a total cost of $190 million, just to bring all trucks back to a 20-year life span.

As it stands about 14 per cent of trucks are 20-24 years old, with another 17 per cent 25 years or older.

The Weekly Times understands CFA chief officer Steve Warrington has called on the Government for an extra $200 million to upgrade the fleet as it prepares this year’s May Budget.

Victorian Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville has repeatedly denied there is a problem, telling The Weekly Times late last year the CFA was funded to provide a “world-class fire response” and the Government had “funded the biggest ever firefighting fleet Victoria has ever seen to keep our state safe”.

But VFBV chief executive Adam Barnett said successive governments had failed to provide CFA with a sustainable base of capital funding, to underpin asset maintenance and replacement regimen.

“While I fully support Steve Warrington’s budget bid for an extra $200 million capital injection for fleet to urgently address the fleet budget and cater for additional trucks, volunteers are also calling on the Government to review CFA’s capital works budget for fire stations which is also chronically underfunded,” Mr Barnett said.

“Some stations are so old it’s cheaper to knock them down and build new ones.

“With more than 1200 stations across the state, there is still much work to do to bring CFA capital funding to sufficient levels to ease the burden on volunteers having to fundraise for critical infrastructure and equipment.”