Vic firefighters doing battle with IT outages

Firefighters in Victoria say that critical IT systems have failed six times in as many weeks, with the union asking for a parliamentary inquiry.

The United Firefighters Union said Sunday that “three separate IT systems” failed on April 26, May 2, May 24, May 26, May 27 and May 31.

The systems are used “to dispatch trucks, track crews, coordinate resources” and locate hydrants, the union said in a statement.

It alleged that frontline firefighters only learned of the outages from other fire stations or from Triple Zero Victoria dispatchers calling the station phone “inquiring whether they were aware of the emergency they had been responded to.”

At least one of the systems has only recently been restored after Fire Rescue Victoria’s devastating cyber security incident in 2022.

The union took aim at the Victorian fire chief, as well as spending with IT consultancies in recent years, which it alleged had not produced results for frontline firefighters.

“We need a parliamentary inquiry into the use, cost and performance of [IT] consultants in Fire Rescue Victoria to sort this out,” union secretary Peter Marshall said in a statement.

A Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) spokesperson acknowledged "intermittent technical issues" impacting its Station Turnout and Firecom systems since May 24.

Station Turnout dispatches firefighters to emergencies, while Firecom tracks communications between agencies.

"We are working closely with Triple Zero Victoria and external experts to investigate the underlying cause of these ... outages and resolve the ongoing issue," the FRV spokesperson said.

"When outages occur, FRV has contingency plans in place which ensure there is no impact to emergency response.

"We continue to monitor the situation and resolve reported issues quickly, usually in under an hour.

"At no time has public safety been compromised and the community should continue to contact Triple Zero (000) as usual in an emergency."

FRV said that earlier issues were the result of excessive CPU usage, and had not re-occurred.