It’s been open less than a week, but Ballarat’s new Incident Control Centre is already proving its worth.
The facility at Mount Rowan provides a space for class 1 emergencies to be managed, including fire, floods and storms, with the centre helping track the latest bushfire in Creswick and monitor crew resources.
Incident Controller, John Rofe, says after a number of exercises, the bushfire was the first real job at the centre.
“It functioned really, really well and it did enable us to track the fire, monitor our resources and have a good level of accommodation for all the people who needed to be present in the control centre to help control the fire and undertake all the other activities associated with that,” he said.
Currently, the bushfire at Melbourne Road is contained, with crews and aircraft continuing to work in the area to extinguish the low-level fire activity within their containment lines.
Impacted locals are urged to stay informed and monitor conditions via local radio stations, social media or the Vic Emergency website or app.
