According to the CFA Victoria is one of the most fire-prone areas in the world.
So, holding an understanding of fire risks and preparing suitable procedures that recognise those risks has formed a critical element of how GreenCon operates during each Fire Season.
Earlier this decade we crafted a standard operating procedure that uses Fire Danger Ratings as our calls to action to trigger what our company does – or just as importantly, does not do – during each Fire Season. The Extreme and Catastrophic ratings, in particular, elicit changes to where we will send our work crews, to make sure we aren’t asking them to travel to areas where they could find themselves in harm’s way.
Our approach is simple. Each day during the season we monitor the Fire Danger Ratings that apply to the areas we’ve scheduled crews to work at. The ratings are forecast using Bureau of Meteorology data for up to four days in advance, so they offer a reasonable picture of what we are likely to face across the course of each working week.
On days that have been listed as having an extreme fire danger rating, we consider whether we really need to deploy personnel we would otherwise have ordinarily scheduled to work in some of our more remote sites if it looks like it could be impacted by that extreme fire danger rating. If an alternative site exists that those employees can be deployed to, that’s where we’ll look to have them work.
And on days categorised as having a catastrophic fire danger rating? If we’ve got work scheduled in a remote area that’s impacted by that rating, we simply will not send personnel to those sites. No ifs, buts or maybes. We won’t be there.
Why? Because when you recognise that lives are likely to be lost if a fire took hold during a day of catastrophic fire risk, and have the option of not working in areas that may be impacted if that was the case… why be there?
Posted 23 November 2023. All rights retained by GreenCon Australia Pty Ltd. For more information about the subject matter this News post refers to, make contact with GreenCon c/- info@greencon.com.au or +61 3 5595 1078