INQ203

There should be clearly established criteria for burns which are specially challenging, and these criteria need to extend beyond the intended boundaries of the prescribed burn. The criteria should be clarified and adopted as agency S OPs.

Opportunities should be sought to embed other local government representatives in other areas of the IMT particularly in public information.

There would be benefit in progressively aligning the geographic boundaries of each of the agencies and seeking to co-locate their headquarters within those boundaries.

Legislative change may be needed to enable FES A to manage fire-fighting resources across the state.

The role of district and local emergency management committees should be reviewed to ensure they are appropriately engaged in the active management of emergencies across the PPR R continuum

The state should progressively align on a shared platform, such as WebEO C , to establish a Common Operating Picture (COP).

The state should converge on a single communications platform for all emergency management and support agencies.

Reporting and control should be through the incident chain of command, and not through agency chain of command.

Early in an incident, close and effective liaison needs to be established with local government agencies.

Web sites need to be kept updated.

A high level review of alerts, warnings and messaging is needed to match community expectations with what is practical and achievable.

Further community education may be needed on how to interpret messages.

The agencies need to develop techniques to ensure accuracy of information across all media.

Local emergency management committees and planning should identify modes of community contact

When people are being moved away from their homes it’s important that they move to a place of greater safety and that their movement is relatively assured.

Suitably experienced personnel with local knowledge should be connected to the Operations and Planning section in all Level 3 incidents in the vicinity of substantial settlements.

There is a need for community education on how road-blocks and VCPs operate in the event of an emergency.

Local knowledge should be accessed to inform the placement and operation of VCPs.

A risk-management approach is needed which considers risks both inside the prescribed burn and the risks that will need to be managed if the fire escapes. The risk assessment should be organised and in line with the four and seven day weather.

Prescriptions should mandate consideration of measures to retire risk.

Once a burn is ignited, it needs to be the subject of continuing risk assessment and appropriate mitigation.

Contingency plans for escaping burns should be prepared in advance.

Prescriptions need to be interpreted by experienced and knowledgeable personnel to ensure risk is fully understood. It is important that the background and justification for these decisions are captured at each stage and are visible to all levels in WA fire management hierarchy.

The burn prescription should capture the fuel characteristics and potential rate of spread for those areas outside the burn that will likely be critical during the initial attack on any escaping fire.

Core ignition, particularly of red flag burns, should be informed by the 4 & 7 day forecasts (including a longer term perspective over 3 to 4 months)

DEC should investigate embedding an experienced forecaster in the state operations centre.

A rolling risk assessment is required which captures the risks of the burn escaping and provides adequate resources.

Decisions taken on the basis of this risk assessment need to be captured and distributed across district and state.

On a regional basis there would be value in closer working relationship between DEC crews and VBFBs to build mutual trust and confidence. This could be done by opportunity engagement of VBFBs in DEC fire management or through exercises.

The State Duty Officer from DEC and the State Duty Director, FES A need to confer whenever a Level 2 or 3 incident is declared to satisfy themselves that they have appropriate incident management structures and resources across the state are at an appropriate level of preparedness.

There needs to be a better appreciation of the role of Vehicle Control Points (VCPs) and how they are managed in bushfire emergencies by all key agencies and the community

VCPs are one of the instruments by which the Incident Controller manages the emergency. VCPs without communications cannot be fully effective in their role. Determine and implement an appropriate communications platform for emergency management

Early resolution and clear communication of the financial and other support measures that will be available to affected residents is an important contributor to community resilience.