Every approved early childhood service must have procedures in place for emergencies to help keep everyone on site safe. Services must review these at least once a year and practice them every 3 months.
Winter is a good time to review and update your service’s emergency and evacuation policy and procedures, so you are ready for the 2026–27 high-risk weather season.
You must assess and consider mitigations and procedures for emergencies and critical incidents, including:
- heatwave
- pandemic
- medical incident such as anaphylaxis or asthma attack
- severe weather
- loss of essential services
- death or serious illness
- missing student
- gas leak
- aggressive person or intruder
- bushfire
- smoke/air quality.
The following webpages have useful information to help you plan:
- Prepare and Get Ready on the Vic Emergency website. This includes details on where to get information in an emergency
- Educational activities and hazard information on the Victoria State Emergency Service website. This has information to help you prepare for storms, floods, and other hazards.
We also encourage you to look at your local council’s Municipal Emergency Management Plan and talk to staff about recent events or incidents to better understand risks at your service.
Assessing and managing bushfire risk in early childhood services
Victoria is one of the most fire-prone places in the world. The Victorian Climate Science Report 2024 (PDF, 15.8 MB) states that bushfires have become more frequent and severe.
We work with CSIRO to assess and manage bushfire risk for schools and early childhood services. We continually improve our bushfire risk assessment process to ensure it follows the latest scientific research.
This year, bushfire risk will be assessed using a mapping tool and specialised guidance developed for us by CSIRO. The tool was designed for Victorian education facilities. It uses current data from national and state bushfire authorities.
We are currently reviewing all services for bushfire risk for 2026–27.
Services at risk of bushfire or grassfire
Some early childhood services are at greater risk of bushfire or grassfire because of their location.
Services assessed as being at the highest risk of bushfire are placed on the Bushfire At-Risk Register (BARR) (Categories 0, 1, 2 and 3).
Services assessed as being at some risk of bushfire or grassfire are listed as Category 4.
Services categorised as 5 or 6 are not considered to be at significant bushfire risk. These services are not published on the BARR or Category 4 List. They also do not reference bushfire on their service approval conditions.
Family day care (FDC) services are not individually assessed for bushfire or grassfire risks. This means they are not on the BARR or the Category 4 list. The bushfire risk assessment process is designed for facility-based services and schools.
Approved providers of FDC services must assess the fire danger risk to their educators and attending children and manage fire risk appropriately. The Country Fire Authority has information on how to prepare your property to reduce your risk of bushfire.
Actions for approved providers
All approved providers should:
- check your service approval conditions
- review your emergency and evacuation policy and procedures
- check your rating on the BARR and Category 4 list in late July 2026, after the latest review. If your service does not appear, you are likely considered low risk. New services may not yet appear online, so always follow your service approval conditions
- download the Vic Emergency app, set up a watch zone around your service and monitor for local incidents, forecasts and warnings
- familiarise yourself with how to monitor the fire danger ratings in your area, through the Country Fire Authority Total Fire Bans and Fire Danger Ratings webpage
- make sure your families and local community understand your emergency procedures and reasons your service may need to close
- check that your service approval shows your correct address including the street number so that the correct site can be included in our bushfire risk assessment.
Remember not to publish your full policies and procedures on your public facing website if it contains sensitive information, like staff contact details. Only share the parts of the policies and procedures that families and key contacts need to know.
Find out more
For more information, refer to:
- Emergency management in early childhood services
- Managing bushfire and grassfire risk in early childhood services.
For emergency management questions, contact our Security and Emergency Management Division by email: emergency.management@education.vic.gov.au
For questions about service approval conditions, contact the Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority by email: licensed.childrens.services@education.vic.gov.au
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