Suburbs left behind as Fire Rescue Victoria misses emergency targets

Victoria’s professional firefighting agency has failed to meet its target response time for structural fires every year since it was formed in 2020, and is performing the worst in the fast-growing outer suburban areas it was supposed to better serve.

Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) data shows that on an annual basis, the agency has missed its target of responding to 90 per cent of structural fires within seven minutes and 42 seconds every year since it replaced the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) and absorbed 38 regional centres and outer metropolitan areas previously served by the Country Fire Authority.

Since 2020, FRV’s budget has increased by 33 per cent, driven largely by an almost $200 million increase in wages. But the United Firefighters Union (UFU) – which is locked in a battle for a new pay deal – argues the state government has failed to adequately resource the restructure.

FRV responded to 88 per cent of structural fires within the benchmark between November and December last year, according to the Fire Services Implementation Monitor, the 21st consecutive quarter in which the agency fell short of its target. FRV has only achieved its 90 per cent target in one three-month period: the September quarter of 2020, immediately after it was formed.

Fire crew response times have been in the spotlight after a house fire in Werribee this month killed a three-year-old boy, Jordan Dashwood. His father, Jeremy, was taken to hospital with serious burns after trying to save his son.

The fire on Newbury Street was within FRV’s Tarneit station response area, but Tarneit’s only truck and crew were attending a car crash at the time.

A CFA volunteer vehicle from Hoppers Crossing, the closest station, arrived at the scene after 10 minutes and a FRV truck from Point Cook station arrived after 11 minutes. Both times are well outside FRV’s benchmark.

The agency’s most recent response time report, covering July to September last year, shows its worst areas for structure fires were Caroline Springs (44 per cent of calls responded to within the benchmark time), 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).

Except for Broadmeadows, all of those stations were former CFA areas that transitioned to FRV through the 2020 reforms.

Victoria’s former emergency management commissioner, Craig Lapsley, said FRV was struggling with the same challenges the CFA faced serving outer-suburban areas with rapidly growing populations, newly developed housing estates and road networks, and road congestion.

“During this period there has been limited or no new additional fire trucks commissioned 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 that these new communities create.”

Lapsley said FRV also had a growing demand to respond to medical emergencies and road crashes in those areas, which all had an impact on crews’ ability to respond to fires.

Announcing the reforms in 2017, then-premier Daniel Andrews said the fire services overhaul would modernise a system that had remained “largely unchanged since the 1950s”, and would “ensure Victorians can rely on modern and local fire services to keep them safe, regardless of where they live”.

UFU secretary Peter Marshall said the restructure was correctly designed to ensure growing outer-city suburbs were protected by 24/7 professional fire coverage, but the funding had not followed to deliver it.

“Since Fire Rescue Victoria was established in 2020, not one new FRV fire station has been built. Not one community … has been brought inside the FRV fire district,” Marshall said.

“FRV’s own published performance data demonstrates the underinvestment by the Allan government in fire stations and firefighters to ensure the protection of life and property, despite the growing demand.”

In its first year of operations, FRV spent $918 million delivering firefighting services, including $756 million on employee expenses. In the last financial year, FRV’s costs increased to $1.227 billion, with employee expenses hitting $953 million.

The UFU secured significant pay rises for firefighters as a result of a long-running industrial battle that sparked a political crisis for Andrews and ultimately led to the restructure. The MFB was replaced by 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, an investigation by Victoria’s corruption watchdog which was due to report last month after years of legal wrangling. But it was revealed on Friday 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, while also campaigning against the re-election of Labor under Premier Jacinta Allan at November’s state election.

Marshall said the Tarneit and Point Cook stations served a combined population of nearly 350,000 people, but were under-resourced with only a single FRV pumper each. If Tarneit had a second appliance, it could have attended last week’s fatal fire in about 5½ minutes, he said.

“A single-appliance station has no depth: the moment its one truck is committed elsewhere, the response that follows comes from further away, and the minutes that decide outcomes are lost,” Marshall said.

A spokesperson for Emergency Services Minister Vicki Ward said FRV’s response times had improved in the past year and were faster than all other states.

“We have the best-funded fire services in the country, and we continue to deliver record investment every year including $1.12 billion into Fire Rescue Victoria last year,” the spokesperson said.

Liberal MP Nick McGowan, the opposition spokesman for Fire Rescue Victoria, said Melbourne’s outer growth suburbs were not getting the resources they needed.

“Growth corridors are exploding in population but completely left behind in fire safety infrastructure,” he said. “Their fire protection is being starved, with Caroline Springs and Tarneit locals less likely to be saved than in better resourced suburbs with sufficient Fire Rescue Victoria stations.”

Victoria’s overall fire services expenditure has risen slightly since the 2020 reforms. According to the Productivity Commission, total spending was $2.38 billion in 2024-25 compared to $2.16 billion in 2018-19, using figures adjusted for inflation.

An FRV spokesperson said the 38 CFA stations the agency absorbed in 2020 used a different response time benchmark, and that the agency was striving to meet the new target in those areas.

“We are working hard to continuously improve our response times to effectively serve the community and protect life and property,” the spokesperson said.

The Fire Services Implementation Monitor also found that FRV has consistently exceeded its emergency medical response time target of nine minutes and 12 seconds, and reached the target in 95.4 per cent of cases in December.

The CFA has also improved its performance against key benchmarks since the reforms, including keeping structure fires confined to a single room and reducing road accident response times, the monitor found.

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