In the last quarter of 2016-17, Wendouree brigade had an average time arriving at an incident of eight minutes and 28 seconds. 

Sebastopol had a time of almost 10 minutes and while Ballarat and Ballarat City were taking 8 minutes 42 seconds and  six minutes 53 second respectively. 

The target arrival time for any CFA crew for a level two hazardous incident is eight minutes or fewer for 90 per cent of call-outs. 

In the latest quarter, Wendouree and Sebastopol has improved their time but were still over the target time with times of eight minutes and 20 seconds and eight minutes and 51 seconds respectively. 

Ballarat and Ballarat City also improved their response times with figures this quarter showing the brigades had turn out times of seven minutes and 58 seconds and five minutes and 50 seconds. 

CFA District 15 operations manager Brett Boatman said the fire services management will continue to make changes to help brigades improve their response times. 

“A few key initiatives we have are the opening of the Lucas fire station open yesterday,” Mr Boatman said. 

“In Sebastopol we have purchased a block of land at back of the station to create access from the neighbouring streets where the volunteers live, rather than them trying to fight through Albert Street traffic.

“With Wendouree, the station has been there for 20 years and because of where it is built and demographic of people we attract, the only improvement we can make at Wendouree is to make it easier to get in and out of the station.”