As we move into our municipality's Fire Danger Period (FDP) - which began Monday 18 November 2024 and will continue to 1 May 2025 - Council are taking the responsibility of emergency preparation and our community's safety very seriously.
To be in the best position to help our community during and after an emergency, Council have continued training and upskilling staff, outlining these measures during the most recent Council Meeting this week (26 November).
Last month, twenty-five Council staff completed comprehensive Emergency Relief Centre (ERC) operation training. Together with 25 staff trained in the previous year, Council now has 50 personnel who are trained to operate our Emergency Relief Centres.
Two additional staff are being trained in Municipal Emergency Management Officer (MEMO) positions, giving the council a total of five trained MEMOs; and two additional staff are also undergoing Municipal Recovery Managers (MRM) training, giving the council a total of 5 trained MRMs.
Four staff are being trained as Emergency Management Liaison Officers (EMLOs), who, in the event of an emergency, can be deployed to the region's three Incident Control Centres: Ararat, Ballarat and Horsham.
This training is part of Council's commitment to utilising a variety of approaches and local arrangements to best meet unique, local emergency management needs.
"I'm very proud of everything our staff have done, both in terms of training and in terms of general preparedness around our capacity to respond to emergency situations within our community," says Ararat Rural City Council CEO Dr Tim Harrison.
"If we were to have a major event, we would now be able to manage such an emergency much more effectively, with several shifts of trained personnel [at our disposal]."
