Government and community expectations about planned burning to mitigate bushfire risk has increased significantly since the Victorian Black Saturday fires in 2009. Providing resources to meet this expectation is problematic for fire agencies. Victoria’s Country Fire Authority (CFA) faces particular challenges as it relies on a volunteer workforce.

Unlike Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), Parks Victoria and the water authorities, CFA is not a land manager, nor does it have land management resources. It has a legislative responsibility to support fire prevention works including planned burning in the Country Area of Victoria.

CFA volunteer fire brigades have a long and proud history of planned burning. However a decline in the availability of volunteers, an increasingly risk averse community, combined with complexities such as legislative and environmental considerations, have led to reduced volunteer fire brigade involvement in planned burning in parts of the state. This in turn had led to a decline in capability.

There is a need for rapid up skilling of both volunteer and career firefighters. A ‘whole of government' approach is required to ensure that knowledge is transferred between the agencies themselves and the public they serve.

Joint agency burns and cross agency mentoring utilising the skills of experts from Victorian public land management agencies to enhance the skills of CFA members is occurring. This approach needs to be core business of fire and land management agency partners.

The joined up agency approach to planned burning benefits the greater community with improved cover of planned burn treatments, and at the same time will enrich bushfire suppression operations in terms of enhancing firefighter safety and interoperability.

This paper will look at two case studies which demonstrate how field personnel from a number agencies have achieved these benefits by working together.