ACT Fire and Rescue's chief officer has rejected claims in a new report that the organisation's structure is "faulty", saying the report makes "this broad assertion that there's something wrong" without really defining any problems.
In the report, commissioned by the United Firefighters Union, three researchers describe "a tsunami-like wave of challenges" confronting the fire service.
Among the challenges are climate change, rapid population growth, the risks posed by potentially combustible aluminium cladding on a still unknown number of Canberra buildings, and the fire risk associated with the expected high uptake of electric vehicles in government fleets.
The researchers say despite these mounting challenges, the total firefighting force per 100,000 people in the ACT has decreased by almost 17 per cent in the space of a decade. They said Community Fire Unit volunteers - residents trained and equipped by ACT Fire and Rescue to safeguard their homes in a bushfire - should be removed from the firefighter numbers in the Report on Government Services, arguing it was "misleading" to include them.
"The ACT has only 362 firefighters per 100,000 people," the report commissioned by the union says.
"That number is 980 in NSW and Tasmania, almost 870 in Victoria, 890 in WA and 920 for Australia as a whole."
However, ACT Fire and Rescue chief officer Mark Brown said the Productivity Commission decided how to count resources in the Report on Government Services.
He said the same counting rules would have also applied to other jurisdictions with such volunteers, and that the roughly 160 firefighters who worked for the ACT Parks and Conservation Service had not been included.
"You actually would need to go back and do some further calculations to get a more direct comparison between the jurisdictions," he said.
"[The ratio of firefighters per 100,000] people wouldn't have dropped that much."
Mr Brown took particular issue with the description in the researchers' report of ACT Fire and Rescue's administrative structure and governance arrangements as "faulty".
The researchers said levels of transparency in ACT Fire and Rescue were low compared with other fire services, which was a reflection of the decision to locate the service within a broad government department against the recommendations of the McLeod inquiry into the 2003 bushfires.
"Can you give us an example of what's faulty and what effect that's having on service delivery?" Mr Brown asked.
"If the report can actually define what problem this is causing, with some evidence, we're happy to address it. But it's just this broad assertion that there's something wrong [and] I don't know what it is.
"We're one of the best performing fire and rescue services in Australia. You just have to go to the [Report on Government Services] to look at that.
"We've got new [personal protective clothing] coming through, we've got the newest stations, the newest trucks. I'm not sure what the problem is."
He said in elevated levels of fire danger, firefighters could be recalled to duty, boosting the available numbers to deal with fires that might be brought on by harsher climates.
Mr Brown said ACT Fire and Rescue was part of the ongoing ACT government audit of buildings with potentially combustible cladding and firefighters had been trained in how to respond safely in the meantime, while the fire risk associated with electric vehicles was no greater than the risk of other vehicle fires.
Emergency Services Agency commissioner Georgeina Whelan agreed with Mr Brown's comments and stressed the importance of the partnerships ACT Fire and Rescue had with the other fire services in the ACT and around the country, which it could count on in the event of catastrophic fires when extra resources were needed.
While the report prepared for the United Firefighters Union raises several issues, the union has praised the ACT government's latest investment in the fire service.
ACT Fire and Rescue spent $4.9 million on overtime in 2017-18, in an almost 250 per cent increase on the $2 million it spent just four years earlier.
The union's ACT branch secretary, Greg McConville, said it was estimated that the 2018-19 bill had reached $6.13 million, but recruits funded in the latest territory budget had the potential to reduce the amount of overtime worked by 77 per cent, saving about $4.7 million if you applied to possible savings to the estimated 2018-19 bill.
Ms Whelan said she was pleased with the government investment, which would make it easier to manage fatigue and the health and wellbeing of firefighters.
