Report on Government Services 2021

An emergency event is an event that endangers or threatens to endanger life, property and/or the environment, and requires a significant and coordinated response. A fire event is an incident that is reported to a fire service organisation and requires a response. Fire events include (but are not limited to):

• structure fires (that is, fires inside a building or structure), regardless of whether there is damage to the structure
• landscape fires, including bushfires and grass fires, regardless of the size of the area burnt
• other fires, including vehicle and other mobile property fires, and outside rubbish fires

Other events that require an emergency response from fire and/or state and territory emergency services include road crash rescue, floods, storms and other natural disasters.

Fire service organisations and state and territory emergency services (STES) are some of the primary agencies involved in providing emergency services for fire and other events. The role of these organisations varies across jurisdictions but commonly includes prevention/mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery activities. Detailed activities by jurisdiction for fire service organisations and STES are available in tables 9.1 and 9.2 respectively in the interpretative material.

This section covers the finances and activities of urban and rural fire service agencies and, for selected tables and jurisdictions, the fire event finances and activities of land management agencies (tables 9A.1–13), and STES (tables 9A.14–18). The scope of fire service organisations data provided by jurisdictions is presented in table 9.3 in the interpretative material.

Nationally in 2019-20, the total revenue of fire service organisations was $5.7 billion (including WA STES) and for STES (excluding WA) was $252 million (table 9.6).

Jurisdictions have a range of funding models to resource fire service organisations and STES organisations. For fire services, government grants were the largest source of revenue in 2019-20 (47.3 per cent of total funding) and levies were the largest revenue source for STES (57.5 per cent of total funding) (tables 9A.1 and 9A.14).

• The Disaster Risk Reduction Package supports initiatives to reduce the risk and limit the impact of disasters in line with the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework. In 2019-20, funding was $20.9 million (table 9A.2).
• The Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements and Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements provide assistance with relief and recovery efforts following an eligible natural disaster event. Cash payments to states and territories in 2019-20 totalled $1.4 billion (Australian Government 2020)¹. Allocations vary across jurisdictions and over time depending on the timing and nature of natural disaster events.

The Australian Government also provides financial support to eligible individuals affected by a disaster, with payments in 2019-20 of $250.4 million (table 9A.2).

1. This figure differs from the estimate in the table 9A.2 which reflects payments to states and territories on an accruals basis. Locate Footnote 1 above

Human resources

Nationally in 2019-20, 22 492 full time equivalent (FTE) paid personnel were employed by fire service organisations, with the majority (77.8 per cent) firefighters. A large number of volunteer personnel (201 662 people) also participated in the delivery of services in 2019-20. The proportion of volunteer personnel and the nature of their role varied across jurisdictions (table 9A.3).

For STES, the majority of personnel were volunteers, with 24 948 state and territory emergency services volunteers and 717 paid staff in 2019-20 (table 9A.16). The proportion of volunteer and paid personnel and the nature of their roles varied across jurisdictions (table 9A.16).

Demand for emergency services

Fire service organisations and STES provide emergency response and rescue services for a range of fire and other emergency events. Nationally in 2019-20, fire service organisations attended a total of 390 861 emergency incidents, of which 93 403 were fire events (table 9A.8) and STES organisations attended a total of 93 419 incidents (excluding Queensland), of which 69 201 were storm and cyclone events (table 9A.17).

Australian Government 2020, Final Budget Outcome 2019-20.