Country Fire Authority chief Russell Rees has told the Bushfires Royal Commission it was not his responsibility to warn communities of fire danger on Black Saturday.
Mr Rees was based at the Integrated Emergency Co-ordination Centre in East Melbourne on February 7 as bushfires raged throughout Victoria.
He said it was up to incident control centres at a more local level to decide what messages were given to communities under threat of fire.
The royal commission also heard that the CFA suspects power lines were responsible for fires in Horsham and Coleraine that broke out on Black Saturday.
Mr Rees told the hearing that "power line assets'' were believed to have sparked the blazes.
Law firms have launched several class actions on behalf of residents, farmers and small business owners whose properties were wiped out by fires believed to have been caused by faulty power lines and other electrical problems.
The opening of the Bushfires Royal Commission's formal hearings - chaired by Justice Bernard Teague - began with a minute's silence this morning.
Questioned about the Kilmore fire - responisble for killing dozens of people in townships including Kinglake, Kinglake West and Strathewen - Mr Rees said he believed the CFA had, to the best of his knowledge, warned people about the weather change that fuelled the deadly fire.
"Yes I do say that, remembering we gave a lot of information prior to the day about the upcoming weather conditions," he said
Mr Rees said the IECC supported local control centres in giving out messages, in particular by posting warnings on the CFA website.
"There's a number of activities that take place inside the IECC ... in a general sense, the incident control centre and through the incident controller at that centre, is responsible for the determination of what is the message to be given to communities," he said.
"The information unit in the IECC monitors that and supports the incident controller ... to give that information out."
Mr Rees said he was aware fire behaviour experts had done work from the IECC in predicting and mapping fires but did not know they were doing it on Black Saturday or how their work was used.
"CFA's philosophy is to try and give as much information as possible so the community can make appropriate decisions and support the firefighting effort wherever possible," he said.
In a statement to the commission, Mr Rees said it was one of the CFA's core responsibilities to warn communities of the impending danger of bushfires and weather conditions.
The commission heard the CFA was made up of 59,000 registered volunteers, 400 career firefighters and 700 career support staff with more than 1200 brigades.
Mr Rees said no one in Victoria had statutory responsibility for warning the community about fire dangers.
"CFA seeks to give information but it depends on the public's understanding of that information and taking that information in," he said.
"CFA's policy is that it gives advice to the community before and during fires, it's talking about giving advice, if one wants to interpret that advice as a warning ... I don't shy away from that ... but there is much more in what the CFA is striving to do than simply to warn."
Mr Rees said the CFA gave out information so communities and people could take responsibility for deciding whether to prepare their properties and stay during a fire or leave early.
The commission heard that weather forecasts in the days leading up to Black Saturday had predicted February 7 had the potential to be more deadly than Ash Wednesday with higher temperatures combined with wind changes.
"Almost worse in almost every aspect but in a cumulative sense, worse in terms of fire danger," Mr Rees said.
The commission heard the Fire Danger Index on February 7 had registered 328.
Mr Rees said the rating was "off the scale" as the index was designed to go up to 100.
"Certainly those numbers are very high, recognising the limitations of that fire danger indices system to make any relevance beyond 100 ... but it certainly is as an indicator quite severe," he said.
Mr Rees said the Fire Danger Index was not given to the community because most people would not understand what it means.
He said the Fire Danger Index was, in a sense, communicated to the community through the CFA's warnings of low to extreme fire danger.
"To understand those figures ... you need to understand what they mean so there needs to be an educative process," he said.
"The language of low, moderate, extreme, high extreme is considered best to explain that scenario."
The hearing continues.
Email a friend