ACT Incident Management Team support 2019 - 2020
6 December 2020
In December 2019 ACT declared a number of Total Fire Ban Days.
A State of Alert was declared for the ACT on 2 January 2020, with ACT Emergency Services Commissioner Georgeina Whelan as the Emergency Controller.
MAPS volunteers were called to ESA headquarters to assist.
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In January 2020 the fires entered ACT and over the next month fire mapping volunteers were continued to be called.
From 1 October 2019 to 4 February 2020 ACT declared a record 24 Total Fire Ban days, the ACT on average sees 5–6 per bushfire season.
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The Orroral Valley fire burned over 86,000 hectares of land, approximately 30% of the ACT.
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For ACT MAPS provided:
- 101 deployments
- 33 members
- 8 locations
- 111 MAPS volunteer days.
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Members deployed
- 1 member deployed 14 times for a total 47 days
- 9 members deployed five or more times
- 7 members deployed for ten or more days
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80% of our members deployed over the fire season. Of the remaining 20%, more than half had not yet had the training to undertake the roles.