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Victoria is one of the most bushfire-prone places in the world.
The safety of staff, students and children is our highest priority during bushfire season.
This page explains how schools and early childhood services prepare for bushfire risk, and what happens on days when the risk is elevated.
- More information for early childhood services can be found on the VECRA website.
- More information for government schools can be found on the Policy & Advisory Library website.
How bushfire risk is assessed
Every year, the Department of Education assesses the bushfire risk of all schools and early childhood services in Victoria.
It does this using a process developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
The process looks closely at each individual site, using a range of spatial and scientific data, including:
- whether the site is in a Bushfire Prone Area (opens in a new window)
- the shape and slope of the land (the terrain)
- the type, amount, and how close vegetation is to buildings
- road density, which shows how built-up the area is
- the likelihood of buildings being destroyed.
Schools and early childhood services are then placed in a category from 0-6. This category tells us how at risk the site is from bushfire.
The department uses these risk categories to decide:
- what actions to take to be prepared for bushfires
- what to do when it is a high-risk day.
Categories 0 - 3 mean that the school or early childhood services is at significant risk. These facilities are listed on the Bushfire At-Risk Register (BARR).
Category 4 means that there is some fire risk. Often this risk is from grassfire. These facilities are listed on the Category 4 List.
Categories 5 or 6 means that the school or early childhood service is at low risk of bushfire. These sites are usually located in the middle of towns or cities. Most schools and early childhood services in Victoria are Category 5 or 6.
Your child’s schools or early childhood service may have communicated their bushfire risk category to parents and carers. You can also check the BARR and the Category 4 List to find out this information.
If your child’s school or early childhood service is not on these lists, the school or early childhood service is at low risk of bushfire. Category 5 or 6 education services are not on these lists.
Every year, the department assesses the bushfire risk for all schools and early childhood services. This means some will be moved into a different category this year. The change might be short term or long term.
Many factors can change a bushfire risk category. For example, if more houses or roads are built nearby, the bushfire risk may go down. There may be updated information about the vegetation near a school or early childhood service, or about the school’s buildings. These factors could also change the bushfire risk.
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is also always learning more about how bushfires behave. New findings about bushfires or climate change can change how risk is assessed.
If the department is not sure about the risk, it asks emergency services or the CSIRO to help make the decision.
Planning and preparing for bushfires
All schools need to be ready for emergencies. One of the ways they do this is by having an emergency management plan.
This plan tells them:
- what they can do to reduce the risk of an emergency
- what to do on elevated or high-risk days
- what to do if there is an emergency.
Some of the actions that all schools do to reduce the risk of bushfires are:
- keeping flammable items away from buildings like trees and gardens
- making sure that emergency vehicles such as fire trucks can get into the school
If a school is at greater risk of bushfire, the school needs to do more things to be ready.
This may include having a building which meets tougher building standards. This is called a shelter-in-place building. The extra building standards help reduce the likelihood the building will catch on fire if it needs to be used in an emergency.
Leaving early, before a bushfire threatens, is always the safest option. That is why government schools at a greater risk of bushfire will have a closure or relocation plan as part of their emergency management plan. This plan means that staff and students are not on the school site when there is an elevated risk of bushfire.
Catholic or Independent schools may have similar closure or relocation plans.
All early childhood services need to be ready for emergencies.
One way to do this is by having an emergency management plan. This plan tells staff what to do if an emergency happens.
For early childhood services in areas at high risk of bushfire, the plan will include:
- what to do on elevated or high-risk days
- what to do if a bushfire threatens the service.
Leaving early, before a bushfire threatens, is always the safest option.
BARR and Category 4 early childhood services will plan to close when the fire danger rating is Catastrophic in the fire weather district. This means staff and children will not be on site. This helps keep everybody safe.
Some services will also plan to do more than the regulations (the official rules) require. This may help further reduce bushfire risk.
Find more information on emergency management planning in early childhood services visit the VECRA website.
If you live in an area where there might be bushfires, it is important that you plan and prepare.
The CFA has information about how to develop a bushfire plan. On elevated fire danger days, families are encouraged to follow their own bushfire plan and the advice of emergency services.
For more information on emergencies, please use:
- VicEmergency app (android/iOS)
- VicEmergency Hotline (1800 226 226)
- Website https://emergency.vic.gov.au
- Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/vicemergency)
- Your local emergency broadcasters
Leaving early: pre-emptive action for schools and early childhood services
An important part of a bushfire plan is deciding when to leave.
The CFA and Victorian Government recommends leaving early when the fire weather conditions are elevated. There is information about leaving early on the CFA website.
Schools and early childhood services plan to ‘leave early’ as part of their bushfire plans. You may have heard these plans being called pre-emptive action plans or catastrophic day plans.
Pre-emptive actions are triggered by fire weather forecasts - not by an actual fire. The Bureau of Meteorology issues the fire weather forecasts.
These plans make sure staff, students and children are not in high-risk locations on high-risk days. Schools or early childhood services will close or relocate to another site when their trigger to ‘leave early’ is reached.
If there is no bushfire nearby, your child’s school will have closed or relocated as a ‘pre-emptive’ or ‘leaving early’ action.
This decision is made using the school’s bushfire risk category and the fire weather forecast. The Bureau of Meteorology provides the department with fire weather information.
On Catastrophic Fire Danger Rating days in the fire weather district, it is too dangerous for any BARR school (Category 0–3) to be on the school site. All BARR schools will close on these days.
Category 4 government schools will also close on Catastrophic Fire Danger Rating days. Category 4 Catholic and Independent schools generally close as well.
On Extreme Fire Danger Rating days in the local government area, it is too dangerous for Category 0, 1 or 2 schools to be on site.
Government schools will close or relocate on these days. Non-government schools may also take action.
On High Fire Danger Rating days, when the Fire Behaviour Index is 40 or more, in the local government area, it is too dangerous for Category 0 schools to be on site.
Government schools will close or relocate on these days. Non-government schools may also take action.
If there is no bushfire nearby, your child’s early childhood service will have closed as a ‘pre-emptive’ or ‘leaving early’ action.
On Catastrophic Fire Danger Ratings days in the fire weather district, it is too dangerous for BARR or Category 4 early childhood services to be on site. These services will close on these days.
Early childhood services may also choose to take extra actions to help keep everyone safe.
This may include closing on other elevated fire danger days. Services may also close due to the impact of emergencies.
Early Learning Victoria services are government-run early childhood services. They follow the Department of Education’s bushfire closure rules, which are the same rules as for government schools.
If your child’s early childhood service is on a school site, it will likely follow the bushfire rule of the school.
This means that when the school site is closed due to bushfire risk, the early childhood service will also be closed.
Information about the policy for early childhood services can be found on the VECRA website.
Schools and early childhood services use fire weather forecasts to tell them when to enact their ‘pre-emptive’ or ‘leave early’ plan.
Fire weather forecasts are provided by the Bureau of Meteorology. These forecasts tell us how dangerous it would be if a bushfire started. They do not tell us if a bushfire will start.
The Bureau of Meteorology considers factors like the temperature, wind and how much fuel (dry vegetation) is around and calculates what this would mean for bushfire behaviour.
This assessment is the fire behaviour index (FBI). The FBI ranges from zero to 100 plus.
The fire behaviour index informs the fire danger rating (FDR). There are 4 levels of elevated fire danger ratings. Each FDR level is a band of FBI values.
- Moderate (FBI range 12-23) - plan and prepare.
- High (FBI range 24-49) - be ready to act.
- Extreme (FBI range 50-99) - take action now to protect your life and property.
- Catastrophic (FBI 100+) - for your survival, leave bushfire risk areas.
There is further information on fire weather forecasting on the Bureau of Meteorology’s website.
Fire weather forecasts are issued for:
- Fire weather districts, and
- Local Government Areas (LGAs).
Fire Weather District forecasts provide information to the public about the danger. Individuals and families use this information to make their bushfire plans. You can find out which fire weather district you are in by visiting the CFA website.
Emergency services and government departments also get fire weather information for smaller areas, local government areas. This information is not available to the public.
The fire weather forecast information for a local government area and its fire weather district can be different. This is because they provide information about different sized areas.
The Department of Education uses both fire weather district and local government area fire weather forecasts in its bushfire plans.
This approach has been agreed to and is supported by the emergency services, including the Country Fire Authority (CFA).
Sometimes, schools and early childhood services in your community will have different ‘pre-emptive’ or ‘leave early’ plans.
This means they may take different actions on elevated fire danger days.
There are three main reasons why a school or early childhood service may take a different approach to others nearby:
- it has a different bushfire risk category
- other bushfire safety factors are being managed
- different laws or rules apply.
Most of the time, the reason is the bushfire risk category.
The bushfire risk assessment process looks at each site on its own. It looks at factors like the slope of the land, how close the school or early childhood service is to bushland, and the types of trees nearby. Any of these factors could change the risk category.
This is why schools and early childhood services near each other often end up with different categories.
Sometimes, one of the other actions used to manage bushfire risk is not in place yet or needs work.
For example, work may need to happen on the shelter-in-place building. When this happens, the school and early childhood service respond differently until the work is done.
Early childhood services, government schools and non-government schools may also act differently. This is because different laws and rules apply to each type of service.
Some services choose to do more than the regulations (the official rules) require, to further reduce bushfire risk.
Responding to bushfire
If there is a bushfire in the area, schools and early childhood services use their emergency management plan. This plan tells them what to do.
Emergency management plans include information about:
- when to take action
- what to do when emergency warnings are issued
- how to evacuate or shelter-in-place.
The department works closely with emergency services during emergencies.
This helps manage the safety of schools and early childhood services.
Sometimes this means closing schools or early childhood services until the danger has passed.
Your child’s school or early childhood service will contact you if it is taking bushfire actions.
The Department of Education works with emergency services to help manage emergencies.
Some of the ways we work together are:
- making plans to reduce the danger
- working in incident control centres, to help support schools and early childhood services when emergencies happen
- helping communities to recover after emergencies.
The department talks with emergency services about schools and early childhood services plans.
This includes meeting with the Country Fire Authority (CFA) about bushfire arrangements.
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