Latest news with #PeterMarshall
The Advertiser
4 days ago
- General
- The Advertiser
Firies forced to use paper maps to find emergencies
More than two years after a cyber attack crippled communication systems, firefighters in one state are still being forced to use personal phones and printed maps to navigate to emergencies. Fire Rescue Victoria is investigating the cause of five system outages last month, which lasted up to seven hours at a time. The United Firefighters Union says the outages are risking public safety, a claim FRV strongly denies. The Station Turn Out (STO) system, used to dispatch crews to emergencies failed, with firefighters receiving phone calls from dispatchers asking if they had received notices to attend emergencies. The notices had never arrived. Firefighters and dispatchers had to rely on fallbacks and workarounds like manual phone calls, pagers, and pen and paper to respond to emergencies. The union says one outage occurred in late April, followed by the five in May. The same system also provides emergency tones throughout stations, delivers routing information to firefighters and advice on hydrant location. In its absence firefighters relied on a combination of Google Maps on their personal phones, Melway street directories, and separate apps. The union said neither the outages nor resolutions were communicated by management to firefighters -instead they became aware through communication between stations or a call from Triple Zero Victoria. In a letter sent to Commissioner Gavin Freeman seen by AAP, United Firefighters Union Secretary Peter Marshall said the failure of the critical systems put firefighters and the community at risk. "The failure of these systems has potentially grave impacts," Mr Marshall told AAP on Sunday. "Firefighters are resourceful in protecting public safety, but these failures make that job more difficult and dangerous." On Sunday, Fire Rescue Victoria confirmed it had experienced "intermittent technical issues" since May 24. "We are working closely with Triple Zero Victoria and external experts to investigate the underlying cause of these STO/Firecom outages and resolve the ongoing issue," a spokesperson said in a statement. "When STO/Firecom outages occur, FRV has contingency plans in place which ensure there is no impact to emergency response. "At no time has public safety been compromised and the community should continue to contact Triple Zero (000) as usual in an emergency." Victorian health minister Mary-Anne Thomas said cyber attacks were a real and present threat to both the private and public system. "It's important that all our public services have contingency plans in place should there be an incident, and that's what FRV implemented," Ms Thomas told reporters on Sunday. Questions still remain over the December 2022 cyber attack. The hack significantly affected Fire Rescue Victoria's technology and communications systems and exposed sensitive information. It also left the Firecom firefighting information system offline for a year, and affected the rostering system for much longer. More than two years after a cyber attack crippled communication systems, firefighters in one state are still being forced to use personal phones and printed maps to navigate to emergencies. Fire Rescue Victoria is investigating the cause of five system outages last month, which lasted up to seven hours at a time. The United Firefighters Union says the outages are risking public safety, a claim FRV strongly denies. The Station Turn Out (STO) system, used to dispatch crews to emergencies failed, with firefighters receiving phone calls from dispatchers asking if they had received notices to attend emergencies. The notices had never arrived. Firefighters and dispatchers had to rely on fallbacks and workarounds like manual phone calls, pagers, and pen and paper to respond to emergencies. The union says one outage occurred in late April, followed by the five in May. The same system also provides emergency tones throughout stations, delivers routing information to firefighters and advice on hydrant location. In its absence firefighters relied on a combination of Google Maps on their personal phones, Melway street directories, and separate apps. The union said neither the outages nor resolutions were communicated by management to firefighters -instead they became aware through communication between stations or a call from Triple Zero Victoria. In a letter sent to Commissioner Gavin Freeman seen by AAP, United Firefighters Union Secretary Peter Marshall said the failure of the critical systems put firefighters and the community at risk. "The failure of these systems has potentially grave impacts," Mr Marshall told AAP on Sunday. "Firefighters are resourceful in protecting public safety, but these failures make that job more difficult and dangerous." On Sunday, Fire Rescue Victoria confirmed it had experienced "intermittent technical issues" since May 24. "We are working closely with Triple Zero Victoria and external experts to investigate the underlying cause of these STO/Firecom outages and resolve the ongoing issue," a spokesperson said in a statement. "When STO/Firecom outages occur, FRV has contingency plans in place which ensure there is no impact to emergency response. "At no time has public safety been compromised and the community should continue to contact Triple Zero (000) as usual in an emergency." Victorian health minister Mary-Anne Thomas said cyber attacks were a real and present threat to both the private and public system. "It's important that all our public services have contingency plans in place should there be an incident, and that's what FRV implemented," Ms Thomas told reporters on Sunday. Questions still remain over the December 2022 cyber attack. The hack significantly affected Fire Rescue Victoria's technology and communications systems and exposed sensitive information. It also left the Firecom firefighting information system offline for a year, and affected the rostering system for much longer. More than two years after a cyber attack crippled communication systems, firefighters in one state are still being forced to use personal phones and printed maps to navigate to emergencies. Fire Rescue Victoria is investigating the cause of five system outages last month, which lasted up to seven hours at a time. The United Firefighters Union says the outages are risking public safety, a claim FRV strongly denies. The Station Turn Out (STO) system, used to dispatch crews to emergencies failed, with firefighters receiving phone calls from dispatchers asking if they had received notices to attend emergencies. The notices had never arrived. Firefighters and dispatchers had to rely on fallbacks and workarounds like manual phone calls, pagers, and pen and paper to respond to emergencies. The union says one outage occurred in late April, followed by the five in May. The same system also provides emergency tones throughout stations, delivers routing information to firefighters and advice on hydrant location. In its absence firefighters relied on a combination of Google Maps on their personal phones, Melway street directories, and separate apps. The union said neither the outages nor resolutions were communicated by management to firefighters -instead they became aware through communication between stations or a call from Triple Zero Victoria. In a letter sent to Commissioner Gavin Freeman seen by AAP, United Firefighters Union Secretary Peter Marshall said the failure of the critical systems put firefighters and the community at risk. "The failure of these systems has potentially grave impacts," Mr Marshall told AAP on Sunday. "Firefighters are resourceful in protecting public safety, but these failures make that job more difficult and dangerous." On Sunday, Fire Rescue Victoria confirmed it had experienced "intermittent technical issues" since May 24. "We are working closely with Triple Zero Victoria and external experts to investigate the underlying cause of these STO/Firecom outages and resolve the ongoing issue," a spokesperson said in a statement. "When STO/Firecom outages occur, FRV has contingency plans in place which ensure there is no impact to emergency response. "At no time has public safety been compromised and the community should continue to contact Triple Zero (000) as usual in an emergency." Victorian health minister Mary-Anne Thomas said cyber attacks were a real and present threat to both the private and public system. "It's important that all our public services have contingency plans in place should there be an incident, and that's what FRV implemented," Ms Thomas told reporters on Sunday. Questions still remain over the December 2022 cyber attack. The hack significantly affected Fire Rescue Victoria's technology and communications systems and exposed sensitive information. It also left the Firecom firefighting information system offline for a year, and affected the rostering system for much longer. More than two years after a cyber attack crippled communication systems, firefighters in one state are still being forced to use personal phones and printed maps to navigate to emergencies. Fire Rescue Victoria is investigating the cause of five system outages last month, which lasted up to seven hours at a time. The United Firefighters Union says the outages are risking public safety, a claim FRV strongly denies. The Station Turn Out (STO) system, used to dispatch crews to emergencies failed, with firefighters receiving phone calls from dispatchers asking if they had received notices to attend emergencies. The notices had never arrived. Firefighters and dispatchers had to rely on fallbacks and workarounds like manual phone calls, pagers, and pen and paper to respond to emergencies. The union says one outage occurred in late April, followed by the five in May. The same system also provides emergency tones throughout stations, delivers routing information to firefighters and advice on hydrant location. In its absence firefighters relied on a combination of Google Maps on their personal phones, Melway street directories, and separate apps. The union said neither the outages nor resolutions were communicated by management to firefighters -instead they became aware through communication between stations or a call from Triple Zero Victoria. In a letter sent to Commissioner Gavin Freeman seen by AAP, United Firefighters Union Secretary Peter Marshall said the failure of the critical systems put firefighters and the community at risk. "The failure of these systems has potentially grave impacts," Mr Marshall told AAP on Sunday. "Firefighters are resourceful in protecting public safety, but these failures make that job more difficult and dangerous." On Sunday, Fire Rescue Victoria confirmed it had experienced "intermittent technical issues" since May 24. "We are working closely with Triple Zero Victoria and external experts to investigate the underlying cause of these STO/Firecom outages and resolve the ongoing issue," a spokesperson said in a statement. "When STO/Firecom outages occur, FRV has contingency plans in place which ensure there is no impact to emergency response. "At no time has public safety been compromised and the community should continue to contact Triple Zero (000) as usual in an emergency." Victorian health minister Mary-Anne Thomas said cyber attacks were a real and present threat to both the private and public system. "It's important that all our public services have contingency plans in place should there be an incident, and that's what FRV implemented," Ms Thomas told reporters on Sunday. Questions still remain over the December 2022 cyber attack. The hack significantly affected Fire Rescue Victoria's technology and communications systems and exposed sensitive information. It also left the Firecom firefighting information system offline for a year, and affected the rostering system for much longer.
The Advertiser
4 days ago
- General
- The Advertiser
Firefighters using paper maps to find emergencies
Firefighters are being forced to rely on personal phones and printed maps to find their way to emergencies, more than two years after a cyber attack damaged communication systems in one state's fire services. Fire Rescue Victoria is investigating the cause of four system outages last month, which lasted up to seven hours at a time. The United Firefighters Union says the outages are risking public safety. The Station Turn Out System, used to dispatch crews to emergencies failed, with firefighters receiving phone calls from dispatchers asking if they had received notices to attend emergencies. The notices had never arrived. Firefighters and dispatchers had to rely on fallbacks and workarounds like manual phone calls, pagers, and pen & paper to respond to emergencies. The union says one outage occurred on April 26, followed by the four in May. The same system also provides emergency tones throughout stations, delivers routing information to firefighters and advice on hydrant location. In its absence firefighters relied on a combination of Google Maps on their personal phones, Melway street directories, and separate apps. The union said neither the outages nor resolutions were communicated by management to firefighters -instead they became aware through communication between stations or a call from Triple Zero Victoria. In a letter sent to Commissioner Gavin Freeman seen by AAP, United Firefighters Union Secretary Peter Marshall said the failure of the critical systems put firefighters and the community at risk. "The failure of these systems has potentially grave impacts," Mr Marshall told AAP on Sunday. "Firefighters are resourceful in protecting public safety, but these failures make that job more difficult and dangerous." Questions still remain over the December 2022 cyber attack. The hack significantly affected Fire Rescue Victoria's technology and communications systems and exposed sensitive information. It also left the FIRECOM firefighting information system offline for a year, affected the rostering system for much Rescue Victoria has been contacted for comment. Firefighters are being forced to rely on personal phones and printed maps to find their way to emergencies, more than two years after a cyber attack damaged communication systems in one state's fire services. Fire Rescue Victoria is investigating the cause of four system outages last month, which lasted up to seven hours at a time. The United Firefighters Union says the outages are risking public safety. The Station Turn Out System, used to dispatch crews to emergencies failed, with firefighters receiving phone calls from dispatchers asking if they had received notices to attend emergencies. The notices had never arrived. Firefighters and dispatchers had to rely on fallbacks and workarounds like manual phone calls, pagers, and pen & paper to respond to emergencies. The union says one outage occurred on April 26, followed by the four in May. The same system also provides emergency tones throughout stations, delivers routing information to firefighters and advice on hydrant location. In its absence firefighters relied on a combination of Google Maps on their personal phones, Melway street directories, and separate apps. The union said neither the outages nor resolutions were communicated by management to firefighters -instead they became aware through communication between stations or a call from Triple Zero Victoria. In a letter sent to Commissioner Gavin Freeman seen by AAP, United Firefighters Union Secretary Peter Marshall said the failure of the critical systems put firefighters and the community at risk. "The failure of these systems has potentially grave impacts," Mr Marshall told AAP on Sunday. "Firefighters are resourceful in protecting public safety, but these failures make that job more difficult and dangerous." Questions still remain over the December 2022 cyber attack. The hack significantly affected Fire Rescue Victoria's technology and communications systems and exposed sensitive information. It also left the FIRECOM firefighting information system offline for a year, affected the rostering system for much Rescue Victoria has been contacted for comment. Firefighters are being forced to rely on personal phones and printed maps to find their way to emergencies, more than two years after a cyber attack damaged communication systems in one state's fire services. Fire Rescue Victoria is investigating the cause of four system outages last month, which lasted up to seven hours at a time. The United Firefighters Union says the outages are risking public safety. The Station Turn Out System, used to dispatch crews to emergencies failed, with firefighters receiving phone calls from dispatchers asking if they had received notices to attend emergencies. The notices had never arrived. Firefighters and dispatchers had to rely on fallbacks and workarounds like manual phone calls, pagers, and pen & paper to respond to emergencies. The union says one outage occurred on April 26, followed by the four in May. The same system also provides emergency tones throughout stations, delivers routing information to firefighters and advice on hydrant location. In its absence firefighters relied on a combination of Google Maps on their personal phones, Melway street directories, and separate apps. The union said neither the outages nor resolutions were communicated by management to firefighters -instead they became aware through communication between stations or a call from Triple Zero Victoria. In a letter sent to Commissioner Gavin Freeman seen by AAP, United Firefighters Union Secretary Peter Marshall said the failure of the critical systems put firefighters and the community at risk. "The failure of these systems has potentially grave impacts," Mr Marshall told AAP on Sunday. "Firefighters are resourceful in protecting public safety, but these failures make that job more difficult and dangerous." Questions still remain over the December 2022 cyber attack. The hack significantly affected Fire Rescue Victoria's technology and communications systems and exposed sensitive information. It also left the FIRECOM firefighting information system offline for a year, affected the rostering system for much Rescue Victoria has been contacted for comment. Firefighters are being forced to rely on personal phones and printed maps to find their way to emergencies, more than two years after a cyber attack damaged communication systems in one state's fire services. Fire Rescue Victoria is investigating the cause of four system outages last month, which lasted up to seven hours at a time. The United Firefighters Union says the outages are risking public safety. The Station Turn Out System, used to dispatch crews to emergencies failed, with firefighters receiving phone calls from dispatchers asking if they had received notices to attend emergencies. The notices had never arrived. Firefighters and dispatchers had to rely on fallbacks and workarounds like manual phone calls, pagers, and pen & paper to respond to emergencies. The union says one outage occurred on April 26, followed by the four in May. The same system also provides emergency tones throughout stations, delivers routing information to firefighters and advice on hydrant location. In its absence firefighters relied on a combination of Google Maps on their personal phones, Melway street directories, and separate apps. The union said neither the outages nor resolutions were communicated by management to firefighters -instead they became aware through communication between stations or a call from Triple Zero Victoria. In a letter sent to Commissioner Gavin Freeman seen by AAP, United Firefighters Union Secretary Peter Marshall said the failure of the critical systems put firefighters and the community at risk. "The failure of these systems has potentially grave impacts," Mr Marshall told AAP on Sunday. "Firefighters are resourceful in protecting public safety, but these failures make that job more difficult and dangerous." Questions still remain over the December 2022 cyber attack. The hack significantly affected Fire Rescue Victoria's technology and communications systems and exposed sensitive information. It also left the FIRECOM firefighting information system offline for a year, affected the rostering system for much Rescue Victoria has been contacted for comment.
The Age
4 days ago
- General
- The Age
Fireys using pen and paper as technology fails following cyberattack
Technology outages are still forcing Fire Rescue Victoria to turn to pen, paper and pagers for hours at a time, 2½ years after a cyberattack damaged the emergency service systems. The agency is investigating the cause of the latest series of outages that repeatedly shut systems down this week, but the United Firefighters Union says the problem is recurrent and risking public safety. Fire Rescue Victoria denies the problems have endangered public safety. Fire Rescue Victoria endured four separate outages in the week to Saturday, for up to seven hours at a time, to both its Station and Firecom systems. Both systems cut out last Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. They again shut down for one hour and 45 minutes on Saturday morning. The Station Turn Out system alerts firefighters to dispatch to an emergency and automatically opens bay doors for fire trucks. Firecom provides real-time information about the location of vehicles, resources like hydrants, and the emergency itself. The shutdowns prompted Fire Rescue Victoria to write to staff on Tuesday confirming the organisation was investigating the cause of the outages. In a letter to Fire Rescue Victoria, seen by The Age, United Firefighters Union state secretary Peter Marshall said the two IT systems were critical and that outages hampered the ability of firefighters to respond to emergencies. 'The failure of these critical systems put firefighter and community safety at risk,' Marshall said. 'Without the Station Turn Out system functioning, firefighters rely upon a phone call to receive notification of an emergency incident to which they must turn out.
BBC News
26-05-2025
- BBC News
Sight loss charity's plea to TT riders and visitors
A sight loss charity has called for TT riders and visitors to be aware of a "heightened risk" on the island's roads for people who have a visual Matters said the increased volume of traffic "brings challenges" and urged those at the event to be "conscious of vulnerable road-users". Chief Executive Cathryn Bradley said some of the charity's members enjoyed "the vibe and the buzz" on the island during the TT races, but others felt that the best thing they could do was to stay at home, which could make it a "long two weeks".She urged drivers to take care during the event. The event could change people's orientation, as changes to routes and bus services as well as having more pedestrians, Ms Bradley said it was a "busy period" and "for safety and practical reasons we don't run the full services that we do the remainder of the year". Peter Marshall from the charity added that many of the issues that people who were visually impaired faced, particularly around the roads, were often "amplified" during the TT period. Pavement parking would impact on people's routes, he urged those with sight loss to allow double time for their charity would still be available to provide visits to those outside of the course, he said, adding it would be contactable on the phone and provide remote services such as its audio news and audio library throughout the event. Read more stories from the Isle of Man on the BBC, watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer and follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X.
Perth Now
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Perth Now
'Scrap the tax': angry firies, farmers shut down CBD
Thousands of angry farmers and firefighters have descended outside the halls of power with one message. "Scrap the tax," they shouted in unison outside Victoria's parliament on Tuesday as budget papers were being scrutinised inside. Incensed with the state government's Emergency Services Levy, which replaces the Fire Services Property Levy from July 1 and raise an extra $2.1 billion for emergency services, the fire volunteers and farmers made their positions known. Dozens of fire trucks lined Spring Street bumper to bumper in a show of numbers outside parliament as protesters waved signs reading, "I fight fires for free. Now I have to pay for that too" and "Farmers aren't cash cows". The tax was originally projected to lift the average annual bill for residential home owners by $63 and $678 for primary producers, but last-minute changes lowered the rate for primary production land and introduced rebates for CFA and SES volunteers and life members. Led by the United Firefighters Union secretary Peter Marshall, many protesters rose at the crack of dawn and travelled from across the state to demand the levy be rescinded and a parliamentary inquiry into the policy. "It is so wrong that the government actually raise a tax in your good name because this is not about you, it's about retiring state debt," Mr Marshall said. The government had signalled a $600 million surplus in their 2025/26 budget, which the union secretary said was funded solely from the expanded tax. Farmer and CFA volunteer of 39 years Rob Armstrong said the government's plan was just plugging a hole it had created, warning of more serious protest measures. "If this government refuses to listen, we will stop the food from leaving the farms," Mr Armstrong told the crowd. "Meat, vegetables, cereals, grains, a week at first, and if you don't listen, we'll do it again. "Your food isn't grown in the supermarket. It's grown by us." Firefighter and union delegate Lachlan Butterfield said the state's fire service is in crisis and needs proper funding. "All they're doing is using our good name to redistribute funds off so they can use it elsewhere," he said. CFA volunteer and cattle farmer Lyn Burleigh got up at 5am to make the two-hour train trip into the CBD from Terip Terip in the state's high country. Ms Burleigh said the levy would devastate her community, impacting sporting clubs and community halls and result in an exodus of farmers who won't be able to sustain their operations. Opposition Leader Brad Battin says he will ditch the expanded levy if the coalition wins government at the 2026 election. "We will ensure that we cancel this tax and ensure our volunteers in the SES in the CFA and all other industries are supported," he said. But Premier Jacinta Allan defended the move, saying the state's emergency services are being asked more and more to go out and protect the community in some of the most difficult conditions. "They need additional support," she said on Tuesday. "We've taken that existing levy and expanded it to provide them with that additional support."
