By Laura Michell
Craigieburn CFA is one of the busiest fire brigades in the region, responding to an average of 56 incidents a month, new data shows.
CFA emergency response times for October to December, 2018, reveal that the Craigieburn brigade responded to 168 incidents over the three months, making it the second busiest brigade in district 14.
The busiest brigade was Melton (219 incidents).
District 14 cover Melbourne’s north-west.
In Melbourne’s north, Epping CFA responded to 88 incidents, while South Morang responded to 49, Greenvale 42 and Mernda 39.
The data also shows that Craigieburn CFA’s average response time is seven minutes and 46 seconds, with 90 per cent of incidents responded to within the required eight minutes.
South Morang had the district’s fastest response time, averaging six minutes and eleven seconds.
Craigieburn CFA operations officer David Maxwell said the brigade, which covers Craigieburn, Roxburgh Park and parts of Mickleham, expected the number of incidents to increase as the area’s population grew.
He said incidents attended by Craigieburn firefighters ranged from house fires and car accidents and fires to grassfires in nearby rural areas such as Kalkallo.
The brigade also provides emergency medical response, assisting Ambulance Victoria to respond to calls requiring life support such as CPR or defibrillation.
“Our call rate has been increasing fairly steadily for the past 10 years,” Mr Maxwell said.
“It is a mixed bag of calls, which require a lot of different skills, but it is good for our firefighters.”
Mr Maxwell said the brigade strived to keep its response times as fast as possible, adding that new traffic lights installed on Craigieburn Road outside of the station had made it easier for crews to exit the station.
