Community
18 September, 2025
Emergency services prepare for fire season
EMERGENCY service agencies united last week for a pre-season briefing on what is expected to be a dangerous fire season in the south west.
The Camperdown Golf Club last Thursday filled with hundreds of representatives from agencies including the Country Fire Authority (CFA), Victoria Police, Victoria State Emergency Service (VICSES), Forest Fire Management Victoria and Fire Rescue Victoria.
The occasion allowed for emergency management partners from across the Barwon South West region to meet with key stakeholders, such as councils, to plan ahead and prepare for the fire season.
CFA deputy chief officer south west region Adrian Gutsche said conditions would be reminiscent of 2024.
“We’ve seen reasonably widespread rainfall across the last few weeks and even into the last part of winter,” he said.
“What that’s now seen is rapid grass growth, especially as we come into the warmer weather over spring.
“Combined with the underlying dryness across the south west region, really across the west of the state, it is a concerning factor for fire agencies and emergency services moving into summer.
“That will possibly see the early drying out of forests and the early drying out of grass.
“We’re expecting very similar to last year, so it’s about being ready and prepared.”
VICSES assistant chief officer Jackson Bell said the dry conditions to date, combined with expected above-average rainfall to come throughout the remainder of 2025, presented concerning conditions for flash flooding.
“We’ve seen the inability for ground absorption due to the drought conditions across the south west, so what we’re likely to see with the chance of above-average rainfall is that when we do get those thunderstorms bringing intense rain, the ground just can’t cope and basically forms a pool,” he said.
“We will see some flash floods this season – no doubt.
“Another challenge we also see in communities is trees over roads, so road trauma’s a big challenge for the state at the moment.
“One of those things that we can do as a community is to keep aware of our hazards in the environment.
“We encourage everyone to download the VicEmergency app, which provides critical information in real time so that if there is a tree over road, storms, a fire or any other emergency in the region, the community can be alerted.”
Mr Bell said he was confident VICSES units across the south west were well positioned to meet the demands of the season, with good membership retention.
“I guess, like with many communities, volunteering has its peaks and flows,” he said.
“But we’re quite confident at the moment with a stabilisation of our numbers without any significant reductions.
“We’re now doing quite a lot of preparation work for the season, ensuring each of our units is ready.
“They've done all their pre-summer briefings and we’re quite confident coming into the season that we’ve got sufficient numbers.”
Mr Gutsche said the CFA was also well positioned with its membership, following successful recruitment efforts.
“The CFA has had a state campaign to increase the numbers of volunteers, so we’ve seen seen a significant increase through that and interest to join local brigades,” he said.
“We’re now busy in the stages of undertaking training to have them ready for the summer period amongst the brigades.
“There’s always challenges around volunteers in less populated areas but the people in the communities continue to volunteer their services.
“We haven't seen a significant drop in numbers and capability and capacity is still there as we have in the past years.”
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