Previously CFA, DSE and SES had three separate systems for managing their people, but now people across the three agencies can call for additional resources during major incidents using the same system.
Acting Deputy Chief Officer Emergency Management Alan Ellis said this single system will make it a lot smoother to escalate a local event to a multi-agency campaign event requiring people from all over the state.
“It’s good to have a single system for requesting resources. Multiple systems between agencies have always been the bane of resource officers – tracking resources is difficult at the best of times,” Alan said.
“It’s a smoother transition because resource officers can now use the same system right through – they no longer need to change step halfway through an operation.
“The system went live at the start of the month and Gippsland flooded the next day. They had 30 requests go through the system and it operated smoothly based on that.
“While the floods were quite location specific and wasn’t the same level as it would get to on a bad fire day, it was still a good test and it worked well.”
SES Resources Unit Leader Matt Frost used the system to request additional CFA support through the Gippsland floods, at Moe and Bairnsdale in particular.
“It made it easier from our point of view and took out all the headaches. The old system required lots of paper forms and each agency had a different version, whereas this is a unified one-stop shop,” Matt said.
“The new system has everyone speaking the same language and lets you keep an eye on the requests being put together for each incident. We can get an idea of what’s likely to be escalated to us at the state level and it gives a better oversight on what they’re thinking about on the ground.”
The new State Resource Request System is operated through DSE’s FireWeb system and can be accessed from any computer linked to the CFA or DSE network. If you have a FireWeb log in, you can access the training system here: http://resourcerequesttraining.
If you're an accredited resources officer but haven't yet been allocated a login to use the new system you can email p.luckock@cfa.vic.gov.au.
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