Integrated Municipal Fire Management Planning update

After the 2003 bushfires across northern Victoria, reviews such as the Inquiry into the 2002-2003 Victorian Bushfires and the 2003 Auditor-General’s Performance Audit of Fire Prevention and Preparedness have made recommendations to improve how we prevent, prepare, respond to, and recover from fire.

Funded by the Victorian Government, and headed up by our own Gary Cook, the Integrated Municipal Fire Management Planning Project (IMFMP) has been established to implement these recommendations.

Latest Developments

A paper seeking the Victorian Government’s approval to establish the structure of the IFMP Framework for Victoria and support for the consistency and continuous improvement elements has been developed by the IMFMP project team. The paper considered all feedback from the 64 written submissions received through the consultation processes undertaken. The paper is currently going through the approval process.

The multi-agency team continues to work on planning for the implementation phase of the IMFMP Project.

Paul Gabriel, Office of the Emergency Services Commissioner, Ian Danahay and Colin Bibby, Metropolitan Fire Brigade and Mike Niven, DSE, have been working the team over the last few weeks and will keep in close touch with all activities. Paul Gabriel will also be working more closely with the team, providing additional expert advice on implementation issues.

Paul Jerome from Victoria State Emergency Service (VICSES) will be joining the team for a six month secondment. Paul will assist with the development of the details of the IFMP Framework to be inserted into the Emergency Management Manual Victoria; and, also the performance monitoring and audit requirements of the Framework. Paul’s extensive knowledge of and experience in emergency management will prove invaluable as the project moves forward.

Wanted – Projects with links to IFMP

The IMFMP Project recognises other work is being undertaken on topics related to integrated fire management planning and information is being collected on these other projects in an endeavour to link with, provide input to or support them in some way. Examples of the sort of projects is OESC’s Wildfire Asset Identification and Consequence Evaluation Project, a GIS Mapping project being undertaken by the Alpine Shire and the Recovery Guidelines being developed by Dept. of Human Services.

The team is keen to know about any projects you are aware of which may have an impact on integrated fire management planning, either now or in the future. The team is looking for projects which have linkages through planning inputs or outputs and tools or processes which could be used in the IFMP processes being developed.

It is sensible to work with other people who are already working in this area to save duplication of effort, time and money.

If you have a project that you think would be of interest to the IMFMP team, could you please advise the IMFMP Project Team on 9262 8697 or by email on fmp-project@cfa.vic.gov.au.