What We Do

VICSES provides emergency assistance to thousands of Victorians every year. In 2016-2017 VICSES recorded its second busiest year on record, responding to more than 31,000 incidents and contributing a total of 302,623 hours of operational time to helping Victorians in need.

For a detailed overview of the ways VICSES responds to the community, view our services fact sheet:

VICSES List of Emergency Response Services.pdf (3.1 MB)

Wondering when to call SES in a flood or storm? Check out this handy infographic:

Should I call the SES?.pdf (136 KB)

Our Services

We provide on the ground support during emergencies, from responding to natural disasters such as flood, storm, earthquake, tsunami and landslide, to road rescue, and supporting other emergency service organisations, in incident management roles such as finance, public information and warnings, intelligence gathering and media.

We support our communities to better understand the ‘who, what, when and how’ for emergency events by:

Building competency in knowing what to do in the future – Believe they know how to do it.
Increasing individual capacity and capability to respond – Believe they can do it.
Increasing awareness of the community’s role and the role of VICSES and others – Believe everyone has a role to play.
Realising the positive outcomes and relevance of preparing for future emergencies – Believe it will make a difference.

We assist Victoria Police in search and rescue operations, and play an important role in supporting Ambulance Victoria, Country Fire Authority (CFA), Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB), Parks Victoria, and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), during fire and other emergency incidents.