General News
27 October, 2025
Repairs 'fast-tracked'
THE Victorian Government was scrambling late last week to organise the repair of more than 300 firefighting vehicles used by Forest Fire Management Victoria and the Department of Environment, Energy, and Climate Action.
Two hundred and ninety Mercedes-Benz G-Wagons and 59 Unimogs have been taken out of service with chassis cracks discovered and other safety concerns after routine inspections.
With the bushfire season just around the corner, the timing of the situation and the embarrassment to the government of their $32 million vehicle upgrade announced in 2017 was tarnished and seized on by the Opposition, saying it was “leaving regional Victoria dangerously exposed ahead of a high-risk fire season”.
“Labor promised Victorians a state-of-the-art firefighting fleet – eight years later – Labor has delivered a world-class failure,” The Nationals leader, Danny O’Brien, said.
The claim was the withdrawal of the resources would place additional pressure on the CFA and volunteers, with budget cuts and their own trucks and equipment ageing.
Mr O’Brien expressed additional concerns that the vehicles would be able to cope with the extreme conditions of firefighting and added the revelation looked even worse in view of recent warnings from premier Jacinta Allan.
“When the Premier warns of a dangerous fire season, Victorians deserve answers on how this failure was allowed to happen and what steps will be taken to ensure community safety,” he said.
“Victorians are paying an additional $3 billion through Labor’s new emergency services tax, yet the CFA is relying on ageing vehicles and is now being asked to cover for FFMV, an organisation now being funded by these additional taxes.”
But a government spokesperson said the situation was already being addressed.
"FFMVic has brought online additional vehicles to continue undertaking critical bushfire season preparations and respond to bushfire emergencies," the spokesperson said.
"These repairs are being fast-tracked over the next two months, and FFMVic is working on agreements to secure additional emergency response vehicles from other states if required."
They said DEECA has a contingency fleet available as well as Landcruiser vehicles, Fire Tankers and bulldozers for fire response; VICSES and CFA have also provided vehicles to FFMVic.
They believed based on the 7-day bushfire risk forecast they will have adequate firefighters and vehicle resources on standby in high-risk locations.
A senior officer with the CFA in Western Victoria who wished to remain anonymous said they didn’t expect the situation to adversely affect firefighting operations, expecting most of them to be repaired “in the next month or six weeks”.
“From what I can gather, they're working on areas that will be affected with fire restrictions, (as) first ups,” the officer said.
“They're working on the fix now. So it's still several weeks before fire restrictions come into force in this area, and by then, we're hoping that some, if not all, of those vehicles will be back online.”
Public Land Management shadow minister, Melina Bath, said the situation was reflective of a broader level of disdain and incompetence regarding land and fire management.
“Grounding Victoria’s frontline fleet weeks before fire season is an unacceptable failure, given nearly 40 per cent of the state is public land,” she said.
“Labor’s flawed bushfire policy ‘Safer Together’ has delivered just 1.6 per cent of land treated for fuel reduction annually since 2015, and the government routinely fails to meet its own fuel-driven risk targets.”
Although not yet officially announced, the expected beginning dates for the Fire Danger Period in areas surrounding Horsham was likely to be either November 3 or 10.
Check the CFA website for updates.