Emergency management

fire staff Victoria is faced with many different types of emergencies and threats every year. These can range from adverse seasonal conditions causing drought and flood, to natural disasters such as fire, or threats from a locust plague or exotic plant and animal diseases.

We play a key role in managing emergencies promptly and effectively. We advise and implement government's response to a wide range of emergencies, notably biosecurity incursions, drought and energy supply shortfalls. We also play a major role in bushfire recovery work and provide considerable assistance in bushfire response.

Current activity

Victoria recently experienced an intense bushfire season, with fires causing significant damage to private property, crops and livestock. This was the worst natural disaster in Australian history. More information is available on our Bushfire Recovery page.

Our emergency management responsibilities

The department is responsible for managing state emergency response and recovery efforts for:

Exotic animal, plant pest and disease outbreaks
Bushfire, flood, storm hail and frost impacting on private land
Drought
Agricultural and veterinary chemicals incidents
Australian plague locusts
Plague vertebrate pests (mouse plagues)
Fisheries incidents (marine and freshwater)
Mining/ quarrying and petroleum related incidents
Energy related incidents
Dairy, meat and seafood production or processing contamination / food supply disruption
Other, such as invasive weeds, forest pests and diseases, and wood product pests.

More information

Further information about our emergency activities is available in the industry sections of our website.