Top award for East Gippsland

The East Gippsland Doorknock project beat nine other entries to be judged joint winner of the Fire Services Award, as part of the 2011 Fire Awareness Awards presented by Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley.

Each entry was assessed by specialist judges who considered the benefits brought to the community, the originality of the idea and whether the project went above and beyond normal business practices.

Robbie De Zwart was a member of one of the two doorknocking teams that spent five days travelling to some of the most isolated and remote areas in the region, and she was glad to be among the CFA Gippsland staff there to receive the reward.

“We were absolutely rapt and I felt so proud to be part of the process. There were so many people involved in this project from CFA as well as the local community and CFA - it was a real team effort,” said Ms De Zwart.

Robbie found the one-on-one nature of the project to be extremely effective - resulting in more than 50 referrals to the Home Bushfire Advice Service.

“I think one of the reasons this project was so successful is that we were able to reach a lot of people who had never engaged with CFA before. We met a lot of new residents and people we don’t normally reach, and it was great for them to get an understanding of the local fire risk.

“We learned a lot from this project and have since rolled out another campaign in Johnsonville, which was successful as well. Around 90 per cent of people we spoke with wanted to follow up with further CFA programs such as Community Fireguard.”

The doorknocking program will continue into the future and the team is currently identifying high risk remote areas to visit over the next two to three months.

“We pride ourselves on being innovative and it’s fantastic that one of our ideas coming from the field has been recognised at the Fire Awareness Awards,” said CFA Gippsland Acting Regional Manager Jan Southon.

“It’s absolutely vital that people not only have a fire plan but they’ve practised it, and talked about it with their family and neighbours. We’ll continue to get that message out however we can, so that our communities are in a better position to act and survive if threatened by fire this summer.”

The East Gippsland Doorknock initiative shared the Fire Services Award with MFB’s Workplace Emergency Management Manual.