The CFA has 1200 brigades statewide with just under 52,000 volunteers, and 2331 vehicles.
The Age was aware of at least 25 CFA brigades – home to 30 tankers – that were unavailable to fight fires in areas across southwest Victoria and the Central Highlands.
The government is proposing to more than double the fire services levy rate, which is used to pay for vehicles and other amenities for emergency services such as the CFA.
Farmers in particular are angry at the increase, which is tied to land values, and comes after more than a year of tough drought conditions affecting their incomes.
The state government has been contacted for comment.
“Farmers facing a 189% tax increase aren’t going to thank Labor or the Greens because their tax increase is now only 150%,” said Victorian Nationals leader Danny O’Brien.
Jonathan Keith, deputy group captain for the CFA’s Pyrenees brigade, said brigades began to walk off the job around 5pm on Thursday.
“I was carting water for the stock – because we’ve got no water – and I got a phone call from my son to say ‘have you got your fire radio with you? Have you heard the fire radio traffic? There are hundreds of brigades calling in’. It’s just built momentum.
“Somebody’s had the initiative to get this started, and word’s gotten around really quickly. Everyone in the CFA in the country is just beyond pissed off with this, so people like me have just gone ‘We need our group on board with this’. Our 13 brigades around the Pyrenees are currently offline”
Keith, who lost stock and fencing in the 2024 Bayindeen fire, said he and many others didn’t have the capacity to pay the new levy.
“This is just a flat-out tax on our land,” he said. “We are fighting the biggest fire we have ever had to confront [with this levy].”
Victoria’s upper house was still debating laws expanding the levy late into Thursday night, but it was expected to pass with crossbench support from MPs from the Greens, Legalise Cannabis and the Animal Justice Party.
It was then expected to be quickly passed back through the lower house, where MPs were staying late to make sure the legislation was passed ahead of the state budget.
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