Fire Ready Apollo Bay
Project
Community report 6/01/2020
The Fire Ready Apollo Bay Project was developed in late 2019 and is a partnership between Apollo Bay CFA, Marrar Woorn Neighbourhood House and Otway Health*. This project was developed after consultation with community to establish what type of local response our community needs in response to a ‘fire event’.
The project aims to:
- Work with Apollo Bay Emergency Services to further
develop an Operational Plan for the event of a fire. Emergency services
include: Apollo Bay CFA, DELWP, Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria, Colac
Otway Shire and Victoria Emergency Victoria.
- Develop an area wide Community Response Plan for
the event of a fire including individual fire plans, business and accommodation
planning and linking our community facilities.
Fire Ready Apollo Bay is a big project. It encourages everyone
in our community to take a positive approach to fire planning and it gives
further support to our local CFA branch. Over the coming months we will have
specialist support for our CFA and emergency services to model and review the
issues we have in Apollo Bay and surrounds. We will also be working with local
businesses and community organisations to help people understand their
responsibilities, as well as what they could expect in the event of fire.
There will be a lot of questions, and a lot of learnings. This
project aims to give our community more tools so we can work better together
and have a better understanding of how to plan and look after each other.
Fire Ready Apollo Bay has been funded by the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation with support from Otway Health* and delivered through Marrar Woorn Neighbourhood House.
What has happened to date:
- In late 2019, 3 community meetings were held and
were well attended by the community. The meetings resulted in a draft “Apollo
Bay and Surrounds Community Response to Fire”. This plan focus was on on what
the community can do themselves in the initial hours after a fire occurs,
before any other outside support arrives
- Emergency management teams (Apollo Bay CFA, DELWP,
Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria, Colac Otway Shire) are drafting their “Emergency
Services Operational Plan”. This plan outlines how emergency services will
respond in the event of a fire
- Marrar Woorn Neighbourhood House received
funding for the Fire Ready Apollo Bay Project
- Otway Health employed a Community Partnerships Officer
to assist in the project.
Next steps:
- Saturday January 18th Community Bushfire Planning Workshop – 10am-1pm at Apollo Bay CFA, 28 Pascoe St Apollo Bay
- Securing specialist consultant to assist with Emergency Services Operational Plan
- Securing consultant to develop Community Response Plan
- Establishing a skills register for those keen to be involved in the project
- Ongoing communication in the Apollo Bay Newssheet and Otway Community News on facebook and Marrar Woorn website, www.mwnh.org .
We would like to thank the community for their contribution to date, many hands make ‘lighter work’. For more information please contact Marrar Woorn Neighbourhood House on 03 5237 8590 or email [email protected].
*Otway Health is the Apollo Bay campus of Great Ocean Road Health
