Tara Murray
More than 40 per cent of the calls responded to by the Caroline Springs fire service are attended to outside recommended response times, according to new data.
The state government data, showed just 58 per cent of calls attended by Caroline Springs fire crews in the June quarter were within the recommended response times.
Caroline Springs has the lowest rate of hitting the response time in metro Melbourne.
Across all FRV stations, 86.9 per cent of emergency call-outs were responded to within the standard response time.
Standard response times for FRV for all emergency incidents across the state is 7.7 minutes.
At Caroline Springs , 90 per cent of emergency incidents were responded to in 9.6 minutes.
The crews attended 179 incidents in the June quarter – 162 were emergency situations.
Caroline Springs last year became a Fire Rescue Victoria station as part of a fire service reform which merged all Metropolitan Fire Brigade stations and career CFA firefighters.
Sunshine crews responded to 86.5 per cent of emergency call-outs within the standard response time.
St Albans crews attended 89.5 per cent of emergency call-outs within the standard time frame.
Deer Park met the standard response time for 94 per cent of call-outs and Taylors Lakes met the standards for 82.6 per cent of call-outs.
In Keilor, 79.5 per cent of the emergency incidents attended were within the response times.
Fire rescue commissioner Ken Block said FRV strives to meet response time objectives and we are committed to continuous improvement.
“While some of the benchmarks were not met, overall, FRV continued to perform strongly, exceeding targets for structure fires in [quarter three], and emergency medical response incidents in both {quarter three] and [quarter 4]
“FRV’s primary goal is to enhance the services we deliver to the community as we continue on our journey and work with key stakeholders to identify, investigate and implement measures that will increase and strengthen our emergency response capabilities.
“FRV is working with the Fire Services Implementation Monitor to ensure we meet existing and future demand and keep Victorians and our firefighters safe.”
