The Victorian Fire Risk Register (VFRR) is Victoria’s first consistent bushfire risk register. It is demonstrating value to those with risk planning mitigation and response accountabilities.

The register lists all infrastructure, townships, environmental tourism and cultural assets that may be impacted by bushfire.   It is centrally maintained on behalf of all agencies but has been built from the ground up with the participation of over 160 agencies and businesses and local government across 70 municipal footprints using consistent facilitation and business systems.   VFRR meets the ISO 31000 international standard for risk management.

A 2012 independent evaluation identified that the VFRR was an effective tool in providing all stakeholders with a shared and consistent understanding of bushfire risk to enable robust evidence based bushfire management planning.

One of the VFRR tool’s key strengths is its ability to spatially represent assets at risk and overlay them with topography and satellite imagery. Its maps have provided municipal fire management planning committees with an effective communication tool that the wider community easily understands and can engage with.

The VFRR however goes beyond the preparedness and planning environment and is now used in a dynamic response mode to provide accurate asset information for decision making by Fire Agencies and Emergency Management sector to support prioritising and resource allocation strategies’.

Miss Elizabeth Calder, Team Leader Risk Intelligence, Country Fire Authority will be presenting at the Australian and New Zealand Disaster & Emergency Management Conference, 5 – 7 May 2014.  Her presentation discusses the Victorian Fire Risk Register and how it improves bushfire management planning and provides evidence-based data to assess the level of risk to properties whilst providing a range of treatments to reduce those risks.

To contact the Conference Secretariat: