Chapter 5 - Information - 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission

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2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission—Interim Report 5 INFORMATION Table 5.3: Timeframes for making information available through the VBIL Fire Ignition time First warning provided to the VBIL FAQ created for new fire campaign distributed to VBIL staff Findings 137 4:19pm 140 Messages not supplied to the VBIL Kilmore East 11:49am 138 3:25pm [four messages, one alert and three urgent threat attached to one email] 139 until 3.25pm under the title ‘Catch‐up messages, Kilmore … fire’. This lagged over three and half hours behind the time of ignition of this fire. The FAQ was created nearly one hour after its receipt at the VBIL, adding to the delay. Horsham 12:26pm 141 12:46pm [urgent threat] 142 1:25pm 143 The FAQ was created within approximately 30 minutes of receipt of the message. Coleraine 12:36pm 144 1:15pm [urgent threat] 145 1:46pm 146 The FAQ was created within approximately 30 minutes of receipt of the message. Pomborneit– Weerite (known earlier in day as Camperdown– Danedite Rd fire) Churchill– Glendonald Rd Fire 1:17pm 147 2:03pm [urgent threat] 148 2:47pm 149 The FAQ was created within approximately 45 minutes of receipt of the message. 1:33pm 150 2:07pm [urgent threat] 151 3:01pm 152 The FAQ was not prepared for approximately one hour after receipt of the message. 4:58pm 156 The FAQ was not prepared for Murrindindi 3:00pm 153 3:49pm [awareness] 154 4:46pm [urgent threat] 155 approximately one hour after receipt of the message. 4:45pm 160 The FAQ was not prepared for Redesdale 3:11pm 157 3:40pm [awareness message] 158 3:57pm [urgent threat] 159 approximately one hour after receipt of the message. Narre Warren– Crawley Rd 8:47pm 164 The FAQ was not prepared for 3:32pm 161 6:44pm [alert] 162 8.28pm [urgent threat] 163 approximately two hours after receipt of the message. Bendigo 4:34pm 165 5:02pm [awareness] 166 9:15pm [urgent threat] 167 5:35pm 168 The FAQ was created within approximately 30 minutes. Beechworth 6:09pm 169 7:05pm [urgent threat] 170 7:44pm 171 The message was not supplied until approximately one hour after ignition. The FAQ was not prepared for approximately 45 minutes. Source: Statements of Ms Venters, Mr Rees, Mr Caughey and Mr Waller and tenders and oral evidence of Ms Venters 172 168
Information 5.101 Table 5.3 indicates that on some occasions on 7 February, short periods elapsed between the ignition of fires, provision of warning messages by the CFA or DSE to the VBIL, and creation of relevant FAQs. However, on other occasions, there were significant delays. The FAQ for the Kilmore East fire was not created for the VBIL staff until 4:19pm. This is despite the fact that Ms Millington’s log reveals that at 12:39pm on 7 February, she contacted Ms Henshaw of the CFA Information Unit to report that the VBIL had received calls about the Kilmore East fire, which was not yet on the CFA website. Ms Henshaw, who had access to the Incident Management System live feeds concerning fire information was able to supply Ms Millington with some information about the fire and indicated that further information would be available. Nevertheless, messages were not supplied to the VBIL until 3:25pm and the FAQ was not created until 4:19pm. 173 5.102 Ms Venters said the different time frames may be explained by virtue of the fact that the Horsham and Coleraine fires were earlier in the day, and during a period when less information was being received at the CSC. 174 She said it was also a case of people having to ‘process an immense amount of information’. 175 VBIL Calls answered and abandoned on 7 february 2009 5.103 The VBIL experienced unprecedented demand — 12,846 calls were presented to the VBIL from 6:00am to midnight on 7 February. This compares with 2981 calls on 10 January 2009 (during the Delburn fires) and 2544 calls on 11 January 2007 (during the Great Divide fires). 176 5.104 The statistics for the VBIL’s performance on 7 February reveal that the CSC fell well short of its performance benchmarks. 177 There were high numbers of calls abandoned. Of the 12,846 calls made to the VBIL on 7 February: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ 731 calls were answered by the Interactive Voice Response (a recorded message service whereby callers can ‘self help’ by selecting options from a menu without the need to speak to an operator) 27 calls were made to the after-hours Interactive Voice Response service 902 calls were transferred to the overflow queue (Centrelink) 9879 callers entered the operator queue 178 1307 calls were terminated before entering the operator queue. 5.105 Of the 9879 calls that were queued, waiting to speak with an operator, only 1754 were eventually answered and 8125 were terminated while the caller waited in the operator queue. 179 5.106 Ms Venters said these figures demonstrated an abandonment rate of 82.2 per cent (8125 calls abandoned from the 9879 calls waiting to speak to an operator). 180 The abandonment rate is even higher if the 1307 calls terminated by callers before they entered the queue are included. Of course, those callers may have terminated their calls by choice on hearing the recorded messages that the VBIL was experiencing heavy demand and that callers might instead ring Triple Zero or call back on another occasion. Further, this figure does not include callers who were unable to get a line because the number of people calling the VBIL call centre exceeded the 90 lines available. 5.107 There were also long delay times before calls were answered. The average wait time was 11 minutes 25 seconds. The longest recorded waiting time was 16 minutes and 22 seconds. 181 5.108 Due to the technical difficulties on the day, the data on calls overflowed to Centrelink on 7 February is incomplete. Centrelink staff answering the VBIL calls would ordinarily log calls in a DSE database in the same way as the VBIL operators. Due to the failure of the remote access facility, Centrelink staff were unable to do so on 7 February. 182 5.109 Other sources of data are also incomplete or inconsistent. Information on call levels for 7 February first supplied by Centrelink to the VBIL in April 2009 was incorrect. 183 In June 2009, Centrelink obtained data from Telstra indicating that Centrelink received 117 overflow calls from the VBIL and answered 62 of these, but these figures are also incomplete as there were no statistics available after 9:00pm on 7 February. 184 The VBIL has alternative data indicating that 902 calls were overflowed to Centrelink, but it was suggested in evidence that this could not be relied on either. 185 169
Page 1 and 2: INFORMATION 5
Page 3 and 4: Information Table 5.2: Fire danger
Page 5 and 6: Information 5.19 5.20 It does appea
Page 7 and 8: Information 5.38 Counsel Assisting
Page 9 and 10: Information 69 5.51 The BoM website
Page 11 and 12: Information 5.69 The technical and
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Page 17 and 18: Information 5.118 Some aspects of t

Chapter 5 - Information - 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission

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