CFA Connect Blogosphere

After the One Source One Message (OSOM) system failure on Wednesday 16 December 2009, we commissioned an independent review by Deloitte to find out what went wrong. I talked about this in my last blog post when I said:

"It's important to clarify that the CFA website itself was unaffected; the problem was with the messages being fed to the website. The computer server that enables the messages to go to the website failed . . . We also immediately commissioned a full and independent audit of the OSOM system by auditors Deloitte to make sure all actual and potential pitfalls are identified."

The fire season is well and truly upon us. There have been almost 4000 fires since the start of the season. We've had severe and extreme days, Total Fire Bans, Emergency Warnings and, of course, fires.

CFA crews have responded to incidents across our state and over the border. We've gone in early, hit fires hard and made sure any threat has been contained. And the coming week will no doubt challenge us again.

I want to take a short detour from the business of the day to wish you all the best for the festive season and the coming New Year.

I've only been here a few months and I'm yet to see out my first summer, but I do feel like I'm beginning to understand what makes CFA tick. The veterans among you are probably tired of hearing that CFA is all about the people. I'm sure for many of you it's a well-worn cliché.

I listen and read with increasing amazement and incredulity to the proposals for bushfire warnings. The insurmountable problem is to address those in peril and uninformed; the problem is that "the authority" has poor intelligence about the fire-front progress and does not know who is unaware of the danger, nor where they are. Broad-brush approaches like ABC regional radio and telephone network "broadcast" would all appear to be broad-brush with poor targetability.