Victorian Fire Risk Register-Bushfire Goes Live

26 March 2015

A website to assist stakeholders to assess the risk of bushfires to public assets across Victoria’s non-metropolitan municipalities has recently been launched.

Designed and developed by Federation University’s Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation, the Victorian Fire Risk Register-Bushfire (VFRR-B) was commissioned and undertaken in close consultation with the project funding body, the Victorian Country Fire Authority.

The key objectives of the VFRR-B are to identify areas across Victoria that are at risk of bushfires, to facilitate improvements in bushfire management planning through the availability of evidence-based data, and to enable risk assessment of public assets. The public assets datasets available through the register include a range of human settlement, cultural heritage, economic and environmental assets that are both public and privately owned.

The VFRR-B website has been developed following consultation with key stakeholders and in consideration of the step-by-step processes to facilitate access to primary and secondary (supplementary) information. The website incorporates a range of advanced technologies to ensure a robust platform for the efficient distribution of content data. Concurrently, a user-friendly and intuitive interface has been prepared to ensure stakeholders can quickly access the required data. Data custodians can also provide updates to the asset information and key data which is then uploaded on the register at regular intervals, thus ensuring the currency of information.

In addition the register offers web-GIS (Geographic Information Systems) capabilities thus enabling users to access maps with customised layers for the integration of datasets. This provides enhanced interaction for users via the mapping of data specific to their region.

The VFRR-B is available for access by representative organisations – including local government, fire services, public land managers, utilities and community groups – that have responsibility for identifying areas of risk from bushfire and to assess that level of risk for each asset. All 67 non-metropolitan municipalities are represented in the register and are required to conduct bushfire risk assessments.

The data available on the VFRR-B is also being used by agencies to complement their bushfire planning and to support their decision making.

The register is available at www.vfrr.vic.gov.au

Further information about this project can be obtained from Dr. Helen Thompson, CeRDI Director, E: h.thompson@federation.edu.au