How police work to prevent and investigate suspicious fires

Every fire season police undertake Operation Safeguard, an overarching operational policy to ensure Victoria Police is prepared for the fire season and can proactively work to prevent a potentially devastating fire.

"It's about how we prepare internally and having our resources ready, monitoring weather patterns and knowing what our localised fire environments are," Acting Inspector Shaun Bingham said.

In order to prepare, police analyse data from the previous few years to pinpoint where a specific issue could crop up.

This data does not always reflect deliberate arson, in fact that is a small percentage, but mostly carelessly or recklessly lit fires that become a concern during the fire season. These include the ongoing issue of car thieves burning stolen cars.

"That becomes a concern around the fire season, particularly on forest fringes or in bush land because then it represents a risk of becoming a bigger fire than it does in the middle of the year."

While emergency management is a 365 day-a-year procedure, preparedness for the fire season is strengthened through Safeguard.

Through the information gathered about any current issues, police are proactively deployed to patrol pinpointed potential problem areas in an effort to prevent a fire in the first place.

There are also minimum resource requirements on days of severe or extreme fire danger.

"That means we have mandated numbers of resources that must be in attendance and police operations centres are set-up so that we're ready to respond should an event occur," Acting Inspector Bingham said.

"So we are prepared in an emergency management sense that should a fire start, we're all ready to go, we have sufficient resources on the ground and the management structure in place so we can deal with what comes."

Police also build on their intelligence database by liaising with partners, such as local councils and fire agencies.

"That is a really critical function insofar as we know what we know- things are reported to us, things we attend, information we've already got and we can analyse our fire histories.

"We can prepare in that sense for those things that we know but it's the things that we don't know, so the anecdotal information that doesn't get reported to us."

This could be small fires police don't attend or information about suspicious behaviour.

"They're the gaps we need to close the loop on," he said.

This information is then incorporated into planning, which includes relaying important information about the fire season back to the community.

"Traditionally this has been through pre-season community forums but in recent years has been mostly through the media due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Acting Inspector Bingham said information from the community was "critical".

"We want the community to let us know what they see," he said.

"We can be as prepared as we can to deal with a fire if it breaks out and we are internally, both from a Victoria Police and a fire agency perspective.

"But the ideal situation is to prevent those fires in the first place and that's through education."

He added that information from the community could be about anybody engaging in reckless or careless behaviour that could spark a fire, so authorities could work to prevent it.

"Then we can task people, our liaison officers, to get out with the fire services to educate these people. It's not necessarily a punitive piece - it's education.

"They're not criminals per se, but they're people who are engaging in risky behaviours so we need to go out and educate them about what reckless and careless behaviours are and encourage them to give it due consideration."

Sharing "vital information" with farmers and others who operate machinery or whose activities could represent a fire risk during the summer months is a key part of the operation.

Acting Inspector Bingham referred to a recent example of a mower striking a rock, sparking dry vegetation and causing a fire near Daylesford.

He said education was a critical part of preventing fires by encouraging people to modify their behaviours during the fire season, especially around the use of machinery, such as headers or slashers, on high-risk fire days when a fire could get out of control.

Education about the potential consequences of small backyard fires in summer, even in a 'controlled' area like a backyard, is also vital as embers could result in a bigger fire starting.

An important part of this is also encouraging people to have fire suppression equipment in place.

Information could also be about electrical assets that are perhaps not up to scratch, so police can inform Electrical Safety Victoria and they can then be informed and take action to inspect or remedy the issue.

"Communication is really critical insofar as we only know what we know.

"What we don't or can't know, that's what we want to know and want the community and our partner agencies to provide us with so that we can do something from a policing perspective, to try and keep the community safe."

Acting Inspector Bingham said preventing fires was vital due to the impact they could have on the community and emergency services - be it police, volunteer firefighters, SES personnel or arson chemists.

"If it is quite large we need to evacuate people and it becomes quite a large logistical exercise with a lot of people and resources put into it to keep the community safe, but it also displaces people in the community.

"The impact of fires is quite big on the community so what we want to do is limit that impact by getting the information we need in order to prevent them in the first place."

Detectives are in regular contact with fire services, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and arson chemists to be informed of any potentially suspicious fires across the region.

A detective attends the scene of every suspicious fire and investigates it with the intention to lay charges for any offences.

Acting Inspector Bingham said police attended "every fire" and gave it the "relevant attention it needs".

"If we identify there is a pattern or a series of fires then we'll put additional preventative measures in place to try and prevent that pattern or series from getting bigger," he said.

The Ballarat CIU is currently investigating a number of suspicious fires across the region. Acting Detective Sergeant Le Maitre said there were some small, suspicious grassfires that were "of concern".

While they were "really small", quickly extinguished and did not cause any structural damage, "the fact there's been several of them is what is causing us to be a bit concerned", he said.

He added it would not take much for a small fire to escalate on a high-fire danger day.

The fires being investigated include three at Beaufort in November and December.

The first was a grass and tree fire on Beaufort-Lexton Road on November 9 last year, followed by two grass fires approximately 100-metres apart on Beaufort-Carngham Road on November 20. There was also a grass fire on a walking track on Grampian View Road on December 5.

Police are also seeking any information about a grassfire at Mount Clear on December 29, with investigators discovering multiple ignition points on Bradley Lane and Whitehorse Road. The last fire was on the side of Ironmine Road at Lucas on new year's eve.

Acting Detective Sergeant Le Maitre said the CIU was in constant contact with the Arson and Explosives Squad in Melbourne, which monitors trends across the state, while local uniformed police were proactively patrolling areas of concern to keep an eye out for suspicious activity.

Acting Inspector Bingham called on all community members to be vigilant about suspicious behaviour and to report any observations.

"If you know something or you see something, say something," Acting Inspector Bingham said.

"If you're not happy with something, if it doesn't look right, there's a good chance it's not. But we can't fix it unless we know about it, so make a report."

He reiterated that punitive actions were not taken unless somebody was "flagrantly committing offences".

"We want people to come forward with things that might be pertinent. Let us decide whether it's relevant or not. The chances are, if you think you've got something to tell us about a fire, the chances are it's going to be relevant.

"It could be the very thing we're looking for in order to get a handle on what's happened.

"We are more than happy for people to come forward and give us any information and then let us decide if it's relevant."

Acting Detective Sergeant, Tim Le Maitre, from the Ballarat Criminal Investigation Unit, implored people to report any suspicious activity to police - be it a suspicious person, description of a car or even a partial registration plate.

Even if a fire has not occurred in an area, anything suspicious - such as a mysterious car in an area - could be beneficial intelligence for investigators to either prevent a fire, or solve one that does occur.

An increasingly valuable tool for police is CCTV, dash cam or mobile video footage.

Police ask anyone who knows they have been in an area where a fire occurred to review the footage and see if they have captured anything relevant.

"It really assists us in determining the likely origin and cause of a fire. If it starts in a tree then it could be a lightning strike or if there are two spots on the side of the road then it could have been deliberately lit," he said.

He said reporting any observations from before a fire or when it occurs could help investigators pinpoint the "exact location where a fire starts and help narrow down the investigation right from the start".

"It might not be anything, but it also could and it might save days or weeks worth of investigation."

Anyone with information is urged to contact Crimestoppers 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential crime report at www.crimestoppers.com.au.

These reports can be anonymous, or contact details can be included so police can make contact if further information is required.

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