lessons-management-centre@cfa.vic.gov.au
Puckapunyal Primary School fire Summary CFA attended a structure fire on 6 December 2020 at the Department of Defence military base in Puckapunyal. The incident was complex because of the location and the number of agencies involved. CFA, Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV), Military Police, Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria, State Emergency Service (SES), Defence Command and contracted fire services operated by Ventia were all on scene.
The site Puckapunyal is like any other small country town, except it is secured by fencing around the 43,000-hectare military base and people must pass through a security access control point before entering. At any given time, it’s home to 3,000 soldiers and about 280 families of the ADF. It comprises three key areas: Puckapunyal training area (a 30,000-hectare area of bushland used for training and exercise); Proof and Experimental Establishment Graytown; and Puckapunyal Cantonment, a 5,000-hectare area of containing residential living, operational areas, a public primary school, daycare centres, shops, post office, a public museum, a variety of sporting facilities and a theatre. The land that the military base is situated on is owned by the Commonwealth which added a level of complexity to the incident. However, this was further complicated because the school is situated on land leased by the Department of Education and the school buildings are owned by the Department of Education. Further to this, numerous firefighting services are contracted to Defence
by Ventia, and different staff carry out the services in the Puckapunyal Cantonment and the training area, with an overall manager of the two services. CFA and Local Defence leadership on site have a strong working relationship that is maintained year round. CFA offers a lot of support to the personnel working in the training area, particularly in summer.
Incident overview On 6 December 2020, CFA and Defence were notified of an incident at 1.15pm at the Puckapunyal military base. It was reported that the western wing of the site’s primary school was on fire. Within two minutes of this notification, the Defence’s Puckapunyal pumper 1 and tanker turned out to the school. During transit to the incident, smoke could be seen issuing from the location of the school. As a Defence member who lives on base, Hilldene Fire Brigade’s Communications Officer and 2nd Lieutenant Jake Kociancic was the first on scene in a private vehicle, alongside a couple of American soldiers who were on base. Around the same time, the Defence pumper and tanker arrived four minutes after receiving the initial pager message. Defence’s fire service commenced the primary attack and took initial incident control. A control point was established which was referred to as Military Control. The Mutual Aid Agreement between CFA and Defence facilitates the transfer of control to CFA for complex or significant incidents, so control was handed over from Defence’s Station Officer to Jake Kociancic who became incident controller. Jake called into FIRECOM operations
lessons-management-centre@cfa.vic.gov.au
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