What We Do - Country Fire Authority

What we do

Most of CFA's overall activity involves responding to incidents and suppressing fires. A large proportion of CFA's budget is spent on infrastructure, and planning and maintaining incident response and management capability.
CFA respond to a variety of fire and emergency incidents including:
Wildfires Structure fires Transport related fires Other emergency activities including flood assistance Specialist response activities including:
Confined Space Rescue Trench Rescue High Angle Rescue Road Accident Rescue Industrial Rescue Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Aviation Response Marine Response Hazardous Materials Response Chemical, Biological, Radiological (CBR) Response

CFA are also involved in a range of other activities including:
Fire safety building inspections Delivering community awareness, education and safety programs Post incident analysis and fire investigation Fire prevention planning and land use planning at a municipal level Working together with Forest Industry Brigades. Find out more about this...

During the 2001/02 financial year, CFA brigades responded to 34,139 incidents including nearly 5,000 vegetation fires, 3046 fires in buildings, 2104 vehicle fires and 2958 road accident rescues.

In most instances, our Regional headquarters manage the deployment of resources to incidents within their area.

The State Emergency Co-ordination Centre operates from CFA HQ in East Burwood and is responsible for the co-ordination of resource allocation for the management of large and multiple incidents on a state-wide basis.

All incidents are managed under the Australian Inter-service Incident Management System (AIIMS).

AIIMS provides a structure of clear delegation to ensure that all management and information functions, including incident control, operations, planning and logistics, are adequately performed. AIIMS also provides for the command and coordination of multi-agency incidents.

CFA brigades in outer metropolitan Melbourne are dispatched via a computer- aided dispatch system. Planning is currently underway for the computer- aided dispatch of brigades in country locations.