Response time failure: FRV firefighting “professionals” blame CFA takeover

FRV is failing to meet response time targets, blaming the shortfall on the greater distances it has to cover after its takeover of CFA stations. See the figures.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and his deputy James Merlino repeatedly highlighted poor CFA response times during their push to merge the fire services.

The union-controlled Fire Rescue Victoria service is failing to meet its response time targets, blaming the shortfall on the greater distances it has to cover after its takeover of 38 CFA stations.

FRV has told Victoria’s Fire Services Implementation Monitor Niall Blair it was struggling to meet its 13.5 minute response time target for road rescues in CFA areas, due in part to the greater distances it had to cover.

The admission undermines one of the state government’s key arguments for merging the former MFB and 38 CFA stations to form FRV on July 1, 2020 – to boost poor CFA response times.

In Mr Blair’s latest report: “FRV noted a potential contributing factor to not meeting the target was that former CFA areas, now within the FRV Fire District, were set at the 20-minute standard, but are now reported on via FRV’s internal 13.5-minute standard,” Mr Blair reported.

“FSIM (the monitor) will continue to assess this (13.5min) indicator in coming months and explore with FRV the reasons behind this benchmark not being met.”

Passing the buck: FRV is attempting to blame old CFA standards for their poor response times. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

Mr Blair’s report, published in December, also found FRV fell just short of its response time targets in responding to 90 per cent of structural fires within 7.7mins and containing 90 per cent of these fires.

The independent monitor also found that since FRV’s takeover of CFA stations in 2020, it had struggled to keep 85 per cent of its operational truck fleet primed and ready to respond to emergencies.

Yet the United Firefighters Union is rallying community support for FRV to take over even more CFA stations as part of its Ready for Anything campaign, which warns regional Victorians covered by the CFA they are “NOT located in an area that is protected by FRV Professional Career Firefighters”.

Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria chief executive Adam Barnett said the UFU’s argument that FRV’s career firefighters would provide a higher level of service was not borne out by the evidence – “it’s rubbish”.

Up until July 2020, major regional Victoria cities were serviced by integrated brigades of CFA volunteers and career firefighters, which Mr Barnett argued was just as professional as any FRV unit and cheaper to run.

Opposition emergency services spokesman Brad Battin called on the UFU to stop their campaign to discredit the CFA, especially when “FRV can’t deliver what they promised”.

FRV failed to respond to questions on its performance, which were put to its office last Friday.