Suburbs left behind as Fire Rescue Victoria misses emergency targets
Victoria’s professional fire service has failed to meet its target response time for structural fires every year since it was established in 2020, performing worst in fast-growing outer suburban areas where it was expected to serve better.
Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) data shows that on an annual basis the agency is missing its target of responding to 90 per cent of structural fires within seven minutes and 42 seconds each year Since replacing the Metropolitan Fire Department (MFB) and incorporated 38 regional centers and outer metropolitan areas previously served by the Country Fire Authority.
Since 2020, FRV’s budget has increased by 33 percent, driven largely by an almost $200 million increase in wages. But the United Fire Fighters Union (UFU), which is fighting for a new pay deal, argues the state government has failed to provide sufficient resources for the restructuring.
In its 21st consecutive quarter in which the agency fell short of its target, FRV responded to 88 percent of structural fires between November and December of last year, according to the Fire Services Practice Monitor. FRV reached its 90 percent target in just three months: the September quarter of 2020, just after it was established.
Fire crew response times were put under the spotlight after a three-year-old boy, Jordan Dashwood, died in a house fire in Werribee this month. His father, Jeremy, was taken to hospital with serious burns while trying to save his son.
The fire on Newbury Street was within FRV’s Tarneit station response area, but Tarneit’s sole truck and crew were attending a car accident at the time.
A CFA volunteer vehicle from the nearest station, Hoppers Crossing, arrived on scene 10 minutes later and an FRV truck from Point Cook station also arrived on scene 11 minutes later. Both times are well outside FRV’s benchmark.
The agency’s latest response time report, Covering the months July-September last yearIt shows that the worst areas for structure fires were Caroline Springs (44 per cent of calls answered during the comparison period), Tarneit (58 per cent), Point Cook (67 per cent), Broadmeadows (67 per cent), Frankston (72 per cent), Melton (73 per cent) and Cranbourne (75 per cent).
All of these stations, except Broadmeadows, were former CFA areas that switched to FRV through the 2020 reforms.
Victoria’s former emergency management commissioner Craig Lapsley said FRV was tackling the same challenges CFA faced serving outer suburban areas with rapidly growing populations, newly developed housing developments, road networks and road congestion.
“During this period, a limited number or no new fire trucks were deployed along with additional fire crews to address the growth and increase in calls and the complexity of some calls,” Lapsley said.
“FRV needs to invest in new and additional resources to meet the growth and new challenges created by these new communities.”
Lapsley said FRV also has increased demand to respond to medical emergencies and traffic accidents in those areas, all of which impact crews’ ability to respond to fires.
Announcing the reforms in 2017, then-premier Daniel Andrews said the fire service overhaul would modernize a system that “has remained largely unchanged since the 1950s” and “ensure Victorians can rely on modern, local fire services to keep them safe wherever they live.”
UFU secretary Peter Marshall said the redevelopment had been properly designed to ensure the growing suburbs outside the city were protected by 24/7 professional fire protection, but funding had not been pursued to ensure this.
“Since Fire Rescue Victoria was established in 2020, not a single new FRV fire station has been built. Not a single community… FRV has been brought into the fire district,” Marshall said.
“FRV’s own published performance data shows that despite growing demand, the Allan government is under-investing in fire stations and firefighters to ensure the safety of lives and property.”
FRV spent $918 million providing firefighting services in its first year of operation; This includes $756 million in employee expenses. Last fiscal year, FRV’s costs rose to $1.227 billion, while employee expenses reached $953 million.
The UFU secured significant pay rises for firefighters as a result of the long-running industrial war, which led to a political crisis for Andrews and ultimately led to restructuring. The MFB was replaced by the FRV, which also took on all paid firefighters from the CFA as part of its expansion into regional areas.
The dispute also sparked Operation Richmond, which is run by Victoria’s corruption watchdog and is due to report last month after years of legal wrangling. But on Friday it emerged that Marshall and the UFU were behind another challenge to suppress the report.
The union is now once again locked in negotiations for a new pay deal and is also campaigning against the re-election of Labor under Premier Jacinta Allan in November’s state election.
Marshall said Tarneit and Point Cook stations served a combined population of about 350,000 people but were under-resourced with only a single FRV pumper at each. If Tarneit had a second device, he said he could have responded to last week’s deadly fire in about 5½ minutes.
“A single-device station has no depth: The moment a truck is deployed elsewhere, the ensuing response comes from further away, and the minutes that decide outcomes are lost,” Marshall said.
A spokesman for Emergency Services Minister Vicki Ward said FRV’s response times had improved over the past year and were faster than any other state.
“We have the best-funded fire services in the country and continue to make record investment every year, including $1.12 billion to Fire Rescue Victoria last year,” the spokesman said.
Fire Brigade Victoria’s opposition spokesman, Liberal MP Nick McGowan, said Melbourne’s outer growth suburbs were not getting the resources they needed.
“Growth corridors are booming in terms of population, but fire safety infrastructure is completely lagging behind,” he said. “Fire protection remains inadequate as Caroline Springs and Tarneit locals are less likely to be rescued than in better resourced suburbs where Victoria Fire Rescue stations are better.”
Victoria’s overall fire services spending has increased slightly since the 2020 reforms. Total spending was $2.38 billion in 2024-25, according to the Productivity Commission, compared to $2.16 billion in 2018-19, using inflation-adjusted figures.
An FRV spokesperson said the 38 CFA stations the agency adopted in 2020 use a different response time metric, and the agency is working to meet the new goal in those areas.
“We work hard to continually improve our response times to effectively serve the community and protect lives and property,” the spokesperson said.
The Fire Services Practice Monitor also found that FRV consistently exceeded the emergency medical response time target of nine minutes and 12 seconds, reaching the target in 95.4 per cent of cases in December.
The monitor found the CFA had also improved its performance on key benchmarks since the reforms, including restricting structure fires to a single room and reducing response times to traffic accidents.
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Patrick Hatch is a transport correspondent for The Age and a former business correspondent.Connect with: X or email.
