Bushfires - Your water supply / financial assistance available

What you need to know about your reticulated water supply in a bushfire

We will make every effort to maintain reticulated water supplies in the event of a bushfire. However, supplies cannot be guaranteed and customers should not rely solely on the reticulated water system if they choose to stay and protect their property during a major fire event.

CFA advise leaving early as the safest option to protect you and your family, as the reticulated water supply system is only designed to cope with everyday needs. Excessively high levels of demand from East Gippsland Water customers and emergency services place this supply under extreme load, which may lead to a drop in water pressure, or loss of supply altogether. It may also affect water quality.

In addition, supply availability may be impacted by damage to the reticulated infrastructure itself, or even by sprinklers left on at properties evacuated – leaving firefighters with insufficient water to extract from hydrants, particularly at the end of a system or at a high point.

Situations may prevent our staff entering a bushfire zone to get to infrastructure, which in turn may make it impossible to maintain normal water pressure, quality or an uninterrupted supply to every household.

Bushfire preparations

Our preparations for every bushfire season include keeping our water storages topped up to maximise available water, with back-up generators also located at critical sites – designed to kick in automatically in the event of a power outage.

Where a bushfire poses an imminent threat to property, any water saving rules or water restrictions are automatically waived.