,

g Black Saturday as seen by the Moderate

~ ResolutionImagingSpectroradiometer ~ (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite on

$: 16 February. Places where MODIS detected active fire are marked in red. The enormity of the burst area is readily visible.

Officers at forward command posts around the state now have the ability to update incident information. The operations centre has much better intelligence - of what's happening, and
where it's happening

- in

real time.

Victoria Police wanted a crisis system that not only managed unplanned emergencies like bushfires, but also planned events as well. So far it has been activated to help the force manage its response to New Year's Eve and the Australian Open tennis event. As well, an Australiawide policing initiative - Operation Unite - saw Victorian officers join

Real-timeemergencydata is now accessibleto Victoria Police.

JONATHON POWERS
oaring temperatures in areas around Melbourne in January provided the first real test for Victoria's newlydesigned emergency management capability. The Police Emergency and Event Command system was first activated to manage police response to the code red fire conditions on 11-12 January. The system came through with flying colours, says Commander Dennis Henry, who oversaw the implementation of the system. 'Officers in the Police Operations Centre were typically up and running on the system within 5-10 minutes. The most interesting thing was that it was so easy to use. Most people expected something more complicated.' The new capability takes into account lessons arising from Black Saturday - 7 February, 2009- when 173people lost their lives, and more than 5000 were injured. A total of 2029 homes were destroyed and over 4500 square kilometres of land was left wasted and burnt. There had been an air of crisis about the installation. It was required in time to properly prepare for the 2009-10 bushfire season, by December 2009.The need for common access to situational information was a key point raised by the interim report of the Royal Commission into the 2009 fires. The upgrade of the centre has gone a long way towards helping Victoria Police achieve this goal. 'As with any new system, there are some teething problems to be ironed out,' Henry says, 'but overall, the first real test was a complete success.'

their counterparts in other states to focus on addressing traffic and public order offences over two nights in midDecember. Again the new ~ystem came through with flying colours. Officers were presented with current information during and after the operation. It eliminated the usual need for a 'ringaround' at shift's end to complete a situational report. All the information about events can be captured and easily reported. Commander Henry now expects it to be activated for all major events, such as AFL football matches and the Grand Prix. Another important component of the system is that it will facilitate planning. Police will be able to use information from previous incidents to plan and improve their response to future events. An incident simulator enables data from actual events to be employed for debriefing, general enquiries and in training exercises. Senior officers in the operations centre can collect, organise, analyse, and report on incident data during planned events and unplanned emergencies. It brings consistency and timeliness to the data.

The system combines WebEOC internet-based emergency management software and EmerGeo GIS mapping technology. The design brief was to provide Victoria Police with better situational awareness. WebEOC is manufactured by ESi in the US. It is distributed by Critchlow Ltd in Wellington. EmerGeo in manufactured by EmerGeo Inc. in Vancouver, and distributed by Spatial Vision in Melbourne. Steve Critchlow, who was part of the development team that configured the software, says WebEOC provides one common platform for all information about a situation. It includes tasks that have been assigned, updates from the scene, and much more. The status is constantly monitored, and situation reports are produced from real time data. 'Decision making becomes more effective when there's visibility of an emergency situation as it unfolds. Everyone is inputting and viewing data in one common platform. There are no more emailed documents and the compatibility and timing problems this brings,' he said. Sharing police data with external agencies is restricted under state law. In the code red period in January, police forward command posts across Victoria entered situational data about
matters under their control

such as patterns,

traffic controls and detours. Information

from other agencies

- weather

location and origin of a fire, its status (contained, controlled or out of control), and location of emergency vehicles - also went into the mix. All that ]> information was then available in real ~ time to the police operations centre. 'One of the advantages of this system is that it gives Victoria Police an effective way to make use of data from other agencies,' explains Graeme Martin of Spatial Vision who oversaw implementation of the mapping functionality of the system. Armed with current data on the location of fires and incidents, police were then able to plan their access and response, based on up-to-date information. The system also maps the physical boundary of each area of operation, and then locates every logged event on that map. In serious events, emergency managers now have improved visibility of what's happening, as it happens.
Jonathon Powers is a freelance journalist working in Sydney.

..

Emergency personnel need as much protection from bushfires as landholders.

54

POSITION.

April-May 2010