This year on 5 March marks 50 years of VICSES. Here’s a look at our history, and the people and events that have made us.
50 Years of VICSES
VICSES has a rich historical past. In 1950 we were first established as a volunteer-based Civil Defence Organisation which could quickly be activated in the event of war. In 1975, we were renamed to conform with other Australian states, and the Victoria State Emergency Service (VICSES) was born.
Our timeline:
Since 1975, VICSES has grown to include over 5,000 volunteers and more than 350 staff.
Our volunteers operate from 154 units across the state, in addition to 16 permanently staffed offices in regional and metro locations.
Our volunteers are the backbone of our organisation, serving our communities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year.
VICSES is a significant contributor and leader in emergency management and has been involved in most major emergency responses in Victoria since our establishment. This includes flood and storm emergencies, rescues, fire support, and much more.
In 2025 we’ll be celebrating our 50-year anniversary as VICSES with events including:
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VICSES 50 Years media launch: 5 March 2025
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Life-member gala event: 22 March 2025
VICSES Gisborne Unit, 1991
VICSES Gisborne Unit, 2024
VICSES Craigieburn Unit, 1984
VICSES Craigieburn Unit, 2019
Then vs Now
Our Fleet
Over the last 50 years we’ve undergone many transformations, establishing VICSES as the modern organisation that it is today.
Early on our fleet wasn’t standardised across the service, seeing a variety of different vehicles at every unit. Our yellow fleet that was promiment in through the 1970's was certainly hard to miss!
Today our fleet comprises of a variety of vehicles including rescue trucks, support and transport vehicles, trailers, rescue boats, and even specialised fleet like snow mobiles for response in alpine regions.
Personal Protective Clothing and Equipment
We’ve come a long way with advancements in our Personal Protective Clothing and Equipment too.
Today our volunteers are equipped with some of the latest tools such as hydraulic road crash rescue equipment, as well as male and female fit personal protective clothing, which ensures we can respond more safely and efficiently to emergencies to keep our communities safe.
The Events That Made Us
From 1975, VICSES has played an integral role in responding to major emergencies here in Victoria. Here’s a look at some of our most historic, and challenging emergency events.
1983: Ash Wednesday
In February 1983, more than 180 fires raged across Victoria. VICSES volunteers were deployed to assist our partner fire agencies, working tirelessly to supply resources and logistics, clear roads, and evacuate residents.
The fires saw the largest number of volunteers called to duty across Australia at the time – an estimated 130,000 personnel.
2009: Black Saturday
During the Black Saturday Bushfires 90 VICSES units and over 600 volunteers were deployed to provide fire support, in addition to storm damage response.
Fire support provided included assisting with the clearance of roads by cutting up and removing trees, providing lighting for Victoria Police at roadblocks, supporting the operation of base camps for fire fighters, staging area management and logistics support, and much more.
During the bushfires and aftermath, VICSES responded to more than 3,400 requests for assistance (RFAs) across the state.
2010: Victoria Hailstorm
In March 2010 severe thunderstorms developed across parts of the state, with a ‘super cell’ thunderstorm hitting metropolitan Melbourne bringing widespread flash flooding and major hail damage.
Hailstones measuring 2 – 10cm caused damage to homes and major buildings, resulting in the largest hailstorm ever recorded in Melbourne’s history.
VICSES received over 7,800 RFAs for this event, which at the time was the largest single emergency that VICSES volunteers had responded to in terms of calls for assistance.
2011: Victorian Floods
In 2011, persistent low-pressure systems associated with extraordinary tropical moisture led to Victoria recording its wettest January on record.
Heavy rainfall and flash flooding persisting from 9-15 January causing widespread flooding, and then again from 4-6 February.
VICSES responded to more than 17,500 RFAs, and more than 600,000 sandbags were deployed to support mitigation works.
This is one of Victoria’s worst flooding events, with communities completely devasted by flood damage.
The residual effects of heavy rainfall and riverine flooding continued to impact some communities into March 2011.
2011: Christmas Day Storms
On 25 December 2011 severe thunderstorms struck Melbourne city and the surrounding suburbs, seeing huge hailstones, torrential rain, flash flooding, and even an issued tornado warning.
VICSES received more than 4,200 RFAs, with SES volunteers from New South Wales and South Australia also deployed to support our crews.
11 homes were made uninhabitable due to storm damage. At the time, the Insurance Council of Australia estimated that costs would exceed $100 million after 20,000 claims were received in just five days.
2013: Severe Wind Event
A series of cold fronts resulted in severe weather warnings for damaging winds across the state from 25 September to 1 October.
VICSES received 8,229 RFAs, with over 6,200 located in Melbourne and the surrounding suburbs alone. At peak times call rates to our 132 500 number were as high as eight calls per minute.
The Bureau of Meteorology advised that the winds were the worst that Victoria had experienced within the last five years, with speeds as high as 165km/hr in Wilsons Promontory and 100km/hr in St Kilda.
2019-2020: Victorian Bushfires
During the 2019-2022 summer season, bushfires burned more than 1.5 million hectares of public and private land, destroying more than 400 homes, 6,800 livestock animals, and the loss of five lives.
VICSES provided integral support for our fire partners at state and regional levels, including Incident Management Team roles in warnings, logistics and public information, ground support and base camp support, Incident Controllers, State and Regional Agency Commanders, and much more.
In addition, for the first time ever a multi-agency road crash rescue group was established and deployed into fire affected areas, which VICSES volunteers responded as part of.
2021: June Storms
The severe storms that impacted Victorians in June 2021 remains one of our most historic storm events to-date. Seeing destructive winds and heavy rainfall, from 8 June to 8 July 128 of our units responded to over 10,280 RFAs, including 7,776 trees down, 1,198 counts of building damage, and 350 flooding events – our busiest week on record.
Some of our units including Lilydale and Emerald received a year’s worth of RFAs in just 48 hours – a mammoth, and challenging task at hand.
At the height of the storm event, over 320,000 people across the state were without power.
By the end of the event, over 2,300 initial impact assessments had been conducted with 129 properties deemed uninhabitable. Response to support communities was further challenged by the COVID-19 environment.
2021: Earthquake
On 22 September a magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurred near Mansfield, which was felt throughout Victoria and even beyond state borders.
This is the largest onshore earthquake event in Victoria’s recorded history.
As the control agency for earthquake, VICSES received almost 130 RFAs for building damage.
The earthquake also prompted the temporary closure of some major infrastructure, including the West Gate Bridge and Melbourne Airport to allow for inspections.
2021: October Storms
From 28 October damaging winds and intense rainfall impacted parts of the state, leading to widespread flash flooding and storm damage.
During the period of operations, VICSES received over 9,890 RFAs, with over 7,600 of these for metropolitan Melbourne and the surrounding suburbs. 526,000 properties were without power, making it one of the largest power outage events in the state’s history.
2022-23: Statewide Flooding
A declared La Niña brought periods of heavy and intense rainfall from the beginning of October 2022, seeing an 89-day declared operation though to 3 January 2023, with severe flooding impacts that would result in one of Victoria’s most historic flood events to-date.
October marked the wettest month ever recorded for Victoria, with rainfall more than double the 1961-1990 October average of 64.6mm. During the period of operations, VICSES received over 20,000 RFAs. 13,689 of these RFAs were in October alone, marking our busiest month in VICSES history.
More than 1,500 flood rescues were undertaken, and 1.2 million sandbags deployed. Of the 6,097 property impact assessments undertaken, 976 properties were deemed uninhabitable.
The contributions of our members during this time was extraordinary, with some our volunteers responding to support their communities even while their own properties were impacted by devastating flooding.
2024: Summer storms
In early January severe weather saw multiple districts across Victoria impacted by heavy rainfall, flash flooding, and large hailstones.
During the period of operations from 2 to 20 January, VICSES responded to over 4,000 requests for assistance, including 1,692 for trees down, 1,260 for flood, and 612 for building damage.
Soon after from 13 February Victoria was impacted by Catastrophic and Extreme Fire Danger Ratings, accompanied by damaging winds. Severe thunderstorm warnings were issued across the state, which saw damaging and destructive winds, heavy rainfall, and large hailstones.
Impacts were widespread, with power outages affecting more than 535,000 customers across the state. VICSES received over 6,700 RFAs during the period of declared operations from 13 – 29 February, with 60% of the RFAs received in the first 48 hours.
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