Fireys using pen and paper as technology fails following cyberattack
The agency is investigating the cause of the latest series of outages that repeatedly shut systems down this week, but the United Firefighters Union says the problem is recurrent and risking public safety. Fire Rescue Victoria denies the problems have endangered public safety.
Fire Rescue Victoria endured four separate outages in the week to Saturday, for up to seven hours at a time, to both its Station and Firecom systems. Both systems cut out last Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.
They again shut down for one hour and 45 minutes on Saturday morning.
The Station Turn Out system alerts firefighters to dispatch to an emergency and automatically opens bay doors for fire trucks. Firecom provides real-time information about the location of vehicles, resources like hydrants, and the emergency itself.
The shutdowns prompted Fire Rescue Victoria to write to staff on Tuesday confirming the organisation was investigating the cause of the outages.
In a letter to Fire Rescue Victoria, seen by The Age, United Firefighters Union state secretary Peter Marshall said the two IT systems were critical and that outages hampered the ability of firefighters to respond to emergencies.
'The failure of these critical systems put firefighter and community safety at risk,' Marshall said.
'Without the Station Turn Out system functioning, firefighters rely upon a phone call to receive notification of an emergency incident to which they must turn out.
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