The Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission has pointed the figure at the CFA and the Victorian Government in its interim report. Following 35 days of hearings, 87 witnesses and 26 community meetings it has found that the CFA failed to protect Victorians from the Black Saturday bushfires.

The report does not  recommend  the 'stay-or-go' policy be abandoned, but says the Victorian Government should revamp it. The UFUA's Victorian and National Secretary Peter Marshall told the ABC, "we are the only country in the world that has a policy that recommends to people to stay and defend their homes. We have learnt from the fact that 120 of the 173 perished in their homes, (that) it is ill-conceived and it should be scrapped."

Staying put
Despite the Royal Commission's criticism of the CFA, the state's Premier, John Brumby, has defended the organisation and given its top brass his vote of confidence, including the reappointed of the Chief Officer for another two year term.

The report details bungles at the highest level during the February bushfire emergency. The Royal Commission also has found the state's Emergency Response Plan does not clearly identify who is responsible for warnings and / or recommending evacuations.

The Royal Commission report contains 51 recommendations, including:
- incident controllers be given more responsibility for issuing warnings,
- emergency call services, including triple-zero, be boosted on high-risk days, and
- the re-introduction of community refuges.

A failure to act
"If you go back through every coronial inquest  – every Royal Commission that's been as a result of wild fire, loss of life and property – there's been an issue of the refuges," said Peter Marshall. "Yet we don't have refuges and the CFA resources to defend them. Why not? There should be dedicated units."

Many of the Royal Commission's recommendations have been made in reports on other fire tragedies, such as Ash Wednesday, the Canberra and South Australian bushfires — even as far back as the 1939 Black Friday fires. But they have been consistently ignored by successive Victorian governments. Most recently, the Victorian government ignored requests to upgrade police communications and the triple zero emergency call system.

The Brumby government tried to pre-empt the Royal Commission's interim report and deflect attention away from its findings by rushing through a number of hastily put together plans for this year's bushfire season. However, it can't escape the Royal Commission's investigation that points to a failure of government policy, resourcing  and funding.