All fires must be reported to 000
To report a fire, follow these steps:
- Ring 000.
- The first person you’ll speak to is a Telstra operator. All they want to know is who you want to speak to – ‘Police, Fire or Ambulance’ – and the nearest town. We suggest you specify north east Victoria (ie “Yackandandah, north east Victoria”) to avoid any confusion with our 02 area code.
- The next operator is at an organisation named ‘VicFire’ physically located near Ballarat. While they do not know Yackandandah specifically, they have detailed maps on their computer screens, and are very well trained professionals. Be prepared to tell them:
- The type of emergency – house fire, motor vehicle accident, etc;
- Your location – be as accurate as you can;
- The nearest intersection;
- Has anyone been injured? and,
- Your details (so that they can call you back if we need more details).
- Have someone waiting at your gate to direct us when we arrive.
Comments
- Take your time – VicFire can set off our pagers and siren while you’re still talking to them.
- Use your address assigned as a part of ‘rural property numbering’ – this is your current address and contains your distance from the start of your road. Do not use an old CFA property number you may once have been assigned – these no longer appear on our maps.
- Do not ring a brigade officer or fire fighter you know, and please do not ring the milk bar just because it is next door to the fire station. As a volunteer brigade, our station is unattended – ringing 000 sets of our pagers and the siren. If you ring a fire fighter directly then they must ring 000, delaying the whole process considerably.
- If in doubt, ring 000 – we’d prefer a false alarm that finding out about a fire when it’s grown to an unmanageable size.