Living With Fire 2008-2012 – a new approach to working with communities about wildfire

Living with Fire 2008-2012, formerly Fire Ready Victoria (FRV), is a joint initiative of the Victorian government and the state’s fire agencies. It coordinates all awareness, information, education and empowerment programs relating to fire in the environment. Living with Fire focuses on three key themes: People, Communities and Environment.

This initiative aims to heighten community awareness and understanding of the bushfire risk in Victoria. It also aims to increase the capacity of people in Victoria to prevent, prepare for, deal with and recover from fire. In this context, fire refers to the full range of uncontrolled vegetation fires, including forest fires, grassfires and scrub fires. It relates to fires in rural and remote areas, the rural/urban interface as well as the areas of suburban Victoria where there are large amounts of vegetation.

Living with Fire involves CFA, DSE, MFB and the Department of Human Services (DHS) and operates in close association with Victoria’s Fire Communications Taskforce.

The name Fire Ready Victoria (FRV) will still be used for the pre-season community preparedness meetings that CFA delivers each year. This means that FRV now exists as a program that falls under the Living with Fire framework.

This framework will also include a wide range of community engagement activities across the fire prevention, preparedness, response and recovery (PPRR) continuum.

Plan for 2008-09 season
Planning is underway for a whole range of activities to be delivered under Living with Fire this season. These include existing programs and activities such as the statewide Community Fireguard and the Fire Ready Victoria preparedness meetings. New initiatives include the improvement of existing materials and resources, as well as the development of new programs. Helping people prepare themselves mentally for the stresses and emotional turmoil caused by bushfires is one such initiative.

For more information about Living with Fire please contact the project team through frvstrategy@cfa.vic.gov.au or download the new Living with Fire 2008-2012 Community Engagement Framework at the CFA website.