The Inspector-General for Emergency Management recommends that Emergency Management Victoria – in collaboration with the emergency management sector and as part of the emergency management planning reforms:
a) review, update and confirm arrangements for all tiers of control, including the flexible application of areas of operations, with a particular focus on the triggers for activation, integration with other tiers of control and clearly defined roles and responsibilities
b) exercise these arrangements to ensure they are appropriate and familiar during emergencies.
The revised State Bushfire Plan will inform any changes to arrangements to the existing tiers of command and control for bushfire, while improving the doctrine that supports the operation of each tier by clearly defining roles and responsibilities, supported by consistent implementation of agreed Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System structures.
The SEMP Bushfire Sub-Plan is a SEMP sub-plan specifically for bushfire management that details more specific emergency management arrangements that either vary from or contextualise the arrangements outlined in the SEMP.
Action 1.7 on page 55 of IGEM's 2021 progress report provides information on EMV's work leading the review and revision of the SEMP Bushfire Sub-Plan during 2021.
The revised plan came into effect on 1 September 2021 and clearly defines emergency management roles and responsibilities and responsibilities in relation to bushfire. For example, section 1.6 notes that the SEMP identifies three control agencies for fire response – CFA, FRV and DELWP. These agencies are mentioned frequently throughout the sub-plan and a link to their agency role statements is provided in section 1.6.
Other agencies with roles and responsibilities are specifically outlined in the sub-plan, complementary to the roles and responsibilities in the SEMP. Section 5.7 specifies that bushfire will be controlled at the incident level through the application of the AIIMS principles and functions.
The SEMP Bushfire Sub-Plan is available at emv.vic.gov.au/responsibilities/semp-sub-plans/semp-bushfire-sub-plan (External link)