We need help to make the system more effective

In general it is very useful to the Smokespotter Coordinators if we receive notice when you are about to light-up a permitted burn.

Having this information can save a lot of time for us and other Smokespotters that is spent in getting an accurate location on a smoke sighting, only to find that it is a permitted burn.

If everything worked as it should, when you notify FireComm (on the 1 800 number on your fire permit) it would go onto their database as a vegetation fire, and this information would automatically be transferred to the Rural Fire Service's Current Bushfire Incidents web page.

The Coordinators could then confidently access that page and know that they are seeing all the recently notified permitted burns.

In reality, it appears that many or perhaps most of the permitted burns notified to FireComm are not appearing on that web page.   We know this because many of you have been letting us know when you are about to light-up, but we don't see it there.

Now we have made an arrangement with the Rural Fire Service's IT section that as soon as we know a permitted burn has been reported to FireComm but is not appearing on the Current Bushfire Incidents page we should tell them and they will endeavour to find the weak point in the data transfer process.

You can help us by letting us know when you are going to light-up, and confirming that you have notified FireComm.