A supplementary service, not an emergency warning system
Do not rely on VKDMR for personal safety or assume that silence means an area is safe. Coverage, radio settings, location accuracy and upstream services affect delivery. Always use the issuing agency's official warnings, emergency broadcasters and emergency services for current information.
Five fire-warning regions, plus national weather
Bushfire warnings
New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. The issuing agencies and official links are listed below.
Watch and Act and Emergency Warning are enabled. Advice is currently off for all five fire-warning feeds; it can be enabled separately by an administrator. Ordinary incident notifications are not equivalent to a formal warning.
Weather warnings: Australia-wide
The Bureau of Meteorology supplies eligible weather warnings nationally, including Tasmania, the ACT and Northern Territory where usable affected-area data is available.
Moderate, Severe and Extreme are selected. Certain named severe weather, tsunami, tropical cyclone and major-flood warnings can also qualify when severity is Minor or Unknown, as explained below.
There is currently no dedicated bushfire-warning feed for Tasmania, the ACT or Northern Territory. BOM weather coverage does not add a fire-warning feed for those jurisdictions. Coverage here describes the configured sources, not a guarantee of warning availability or radio reception. Updated 29 October 2026.
80 km
The default selection distance from the affected area. An event spanning several areas can reach multiple repeaters and devices.
Hourly reminders
Warnings repeat every 60 minutes by default. Material updates can trigger a new announcement; official cancellations are announced once.
Three ways to listen
Repeater announcements are attempted first, followed by Emergency-enabled POC handsets, then located personal hotspots.
Where the warnings come from
Supported sources are the NSW Rural Fire Service, Victorian fire warnings from VicEmergency, Queensland Fire Department, South Australian Country Fire Service, Western Australia's Emergency WA / DFES and the Bureau of Meteorology. Fire modules relay formal bushfire warnings; BOM remains the weather-warning source.
NSW Rural Fire Service
Official incident warnings, with Watch and Act and Emergency Warning selected by default. An incident needs a usable affected location before it can be relayed.
See official RFS warnings →Queensland Fire Department
Queensland fire warning relay is enabled on VKDMR, for bushfire, grassfire and vegetation-fire warnings only, using the official QFD CAP-AU feed. Watch and Act and Emergency Warning are selected by default; Advice is optional. Building, structure and vehicle fires and smoke-only warnings are excluded. Information incidents, permitted/planned burns and explicitly labelled hazard-reduction burns remain excluded, as are non-fire hazards.
Official expiry times, affected areas and feed freshness are checked before delivery. Mapped incident points indicate a general area, not the fire's precise location or spread. Weather warnings remain with BOM.
See official Queensland warnings →Bureau of Meteorology
Moderate, Severe and Extreme weather warnings, plus the named warning types described below, where valid warning areas are available.
See official BOM warnings →Victoria: bushfire warnings
The Victorian module takes formal fire warnings only, restricted to bushfire, grassfire and vegetation fires, from VicEmergency and Victorian fire agencies. Building, structure and vehicle fires, smoke-only warnings, ordinary incidents, weather, floods, storms, earthquakes, rescues and planned burns are excluded. Weather warnings continue to come through BOM, avoiding duplicate alerts.
Victorian fire warning relay is enabled on VKDMR, at Watch and Act / Emergency Warning level. Advice is excluded by default, matching NSW RFS. Under Control or Safe incident statuses are not warning levels or official cancellations. A fresh official feed and usable warning area are required. Where the feed has no official expiry, relay validity is limited to a short, feed-timestamp-based lease; a stale feed cannot keep a warning on air.
See official Victorian incidents and warnings →South Australia: CFS bushfire warnings
South Australian bushfire warning relay is enabled on VKDMR, using the official CFS CAP-AU feed. Watch and Act and Emergency Warning are selected by default; Advice is optional. Ordinary incidents, burn-offs, planned burns, structure fires and non-fire hazards are excluded. Numeric incident levels and Going/Controlled statuses do not make an incident a formal warning.
Usable affected areas and fresh official data are required. Official expiry is respected; where none is supplied, a short relay freshness lease applies. A warning disappearing from the current feed stops further delivery, but is not an all clear.
See official South Australian warnings →Western Australia: Emergency WA / DFES
Western Australian bushfire warning relay is enabled on VKDMR, using the designated official Emergency WA warning feed. Watch and Act and Emergency Warning are selected by default; Advice is optional. Smoke-only warnings, closures and other hazards are not included by this bushfire module.
Affected warning polygons determine the area, rather than simply using a display marker. Radio announcements are concise IPSC3 briefings, usually around 40-60 seconds: the level, matching area, issue time and essential original instructions, with fire status or a road closure when space permits. Monitor Conditions and Not Safe to Return areas are kept separate. Ambiguous messages are held rather than guessed at. The full original bulletin remains stored and linked through the official source.
The official feed is checked no more often than every five minutes, and stale or withdrawn warnings stop further delivery without implying an all clear. The brief is supplementary, not a replacement for full agency instructions.
See official Emergency WA warnings →Weekly test: Thursday at 1:00 pm, local time
A short test is scheduled once each week for connected repeaters, personal hotspots and Emergency-enabled POC devices. Local time means the endpoint's location, not the Sydney server clock. Daylight saving and half-hour timezones are handled automatically. Tests use the selected standard voice and the normal direct alert-delivery paths; they are not sent through trunks or the master.
This is IPSC3. This is only a weekly public alert test. No action is required.
- Repeater and hotspot timezones come from their configured/reported location, including the normal hotspot Maidenhead fallback. POC uses each device's fresh reported position.
- Delivery begins at 13:00 (1:00 pm) local time and is queued around existing traffic. Busy sites may hear it later; attempts stop at 14:00 local time. Not every endpoint transmits simultaneously.
- Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart remain at 1:00 pm local time in both summer and winter; their UTC timing changes automatically with daylight saving. Perth is tested at 1:00 pm Perth time, not 1:00 pm Sydney time.
- Devices without a usable location or timezone are skipped. POC needs Emergency reception enabled and a fresh position; current handset transmission is not interrupted.
- Each endpoint is tracked separately, including POC devices sharing a Radio ID. Restarting or reconnecting does not intentionally replay a completed weekly test.
- Real warning jobs are prioritised. Offline or missed tests are not replayed after the local test window; enabling the schedule after 1:00 pm waits for the next Thursday in that timezone.
The scheduled test is enabled on VKDMR and clearly identifies itself as a test. It does not represent a government warning or an all clear. Administrators can disable weekly tests separately under Configuration > Public Alerts. The main automatic-alert switch must also be enabled.
Warning levels and what we relay
Fire agencies and BOM use different warning scales. Below selected warning level means the warning was received but is outside VKDMR's broadcast filter. It does not mean that the warning is invalid, cancelled or safe to ignore. Passing the level filter does not guarantee a broadcast: timing, feed freshness, usable warning areas, nearby recipients and other delivery checks still apply.
NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia fire warning levels
| Level | Meaning | Relay |
|---|---|---|
| Advice Yellow | Stay informed and follow agency advice; conditions may change. | Off |
| Watch and Act Orange | A heightened threat: take protective action as directed by the issuing agency. | Enabled |
| Emergency Warning Red | The highest warning level: immediate action is needed. Follow the agency's specific instructions. | Enabled |
These selections apply to all five supported fire-warning regions. Planned burns and routine incident/status reports are excluded; the Victoria, Queensland, SA and WA modules also exclude building/structure/vehicle fires and smoke-only alerts. Warning levels are not the separate daily Fire Danger Ratings. See the official RFS level definitions.
Monitor Conditions, Not Safe to Return, evacuation and shelter wording describe what people in a specific warning area should do; they are not additional warning levels. Two nearby areas can have the same Watch and Act level but different instructions. Always check the official warning for the exact area that applies to you.
Bureau of Meteorology CAP severity
| Severity | Meaning | Relay |
|---|---|---|
| Extreme | Exceptional danger to people or property. | Yes |
| Severe | Serious danger to people or property. | Yes |
| Moderate | Potential danger to people or property. | Yes |
| Minor | Limited or no identified danger. | See note |
| Unknown | Severity is unspecified, not necessarily harmless. | See note |
Moderate BOM warnings are included from 29 October 2026. Minor and Unknown warnings remain filtered unless the headline contains severe, extreme, tsunami, tropical cyclone or major flood. This retains important named warnings whose CAP severity may be Unknown. Official cancellations use the separate previous-recipient cancellation rules.
For example, BOM can classify strong-wind and gale warnings as Moderate, while a severe-weather warning can have Unknown severity. These scales are not interchangeable with RFS incident levels. See the BOM warning-products guide and CAP severity definitions. Always follow the complete official warning.
How you receive an announcement
Listen on the local call-channel timeslot
Connected repeaters with a known location qualify when they are within the alert area. The default delivery is DMR All Call 16777215 on the call-channel timeslot, currently TS2 on VKDMR. The announcement identifies the repeater by its callsign. You still need to be listening to that repeater's frequency and timeslot, and your radio must accept All Call. Reception depends on the radio and its programming; an announcement does not cross to the other timeslot.
Enable Emergency reception and location reporting
A connected POC handset can receive an Emergency-tagged announcement regardless of its selected talkgroup when its own reported position is within the affected area. Enable the client's Emergency receive option and keep location reporting enabled. Positions must be fresh; the default maximum age is 15 minutes. Each handset is selected independently, even when two devices share a Radio ID. A handset currently transmitting is not interrupted. The announcement identifies itself as IPSC3; normal listening resumes afterwards.
Keep your hotspot's location correct
After repeaters and POC, connected personal MMDVM hotspots within the same distance can receive the announcement. Selection uses the hotspot's reported latitude and longitude, or the centre of a valid Maidenhead locator if coordinates are unavailable. Unknown locations do not qualify. Simplex hotspots use TS2; duplex hotspots use the call-channel timeslot. Your radio must be listening on the hotspot's frequency and accept the configured All Call. The spoken identity is that hotspot's configured callsign, and scan settings or dynamic talkgroup camps are not changed.
For DMR, selection uses the repeater or hotspot location, not the individual handheld's GPS position. You may hear an announcement from a site you are listening to even if you are farther from the incident. POC selection uses the individual handset's reported location.
This is [local repeater or hotspot callsign] with a public alert from the NSW Rural Fire Service. The following warning was issued...
The bracketed text is replaced with the configured callsign of the actual repeater or hotspot carrying the announcement; it is not a fixed station callsign. The message names the issuing agency, gives the warning and its instructions, and directs listeners to the official source. POC only begins with This is IPSC3. Test messages explicitly identify themselves as tests.
Short Western Australian briefings
WA messages use a concise briefing of up to 130 words, typically around 40-60 seconds. It identifies the matching warning area, level and action, gives the issue time in Western Australian time, and retains the essential original instructions and their conditions. Fire status or a specific road closure can be included when space permits. It does not mix another area's instructions into your warning.
The full original WA bulletin remains stored and available through the official source. Media contacts, social links and background updates are not read on air. Unsupported or ambiguous layouts, and instructions that cannot safely fit, are held for review rather than guessed at or cut mid-sentence. Other agencies retain their existing announcement wording for now while message lengths are monitored.
Updates and cancellations
- Active warnings repeat hourly by default, measured per successful delivery.
- A material change to a warning can trigger an updated announcement.
- An official cancellation is announced once to previously notified connected recipients, then reminders stop.
- An expired warning, an unavailable feed or a missing announcement is not an all clear.
Designed for local delivery
Alerts are sent directly to the selected local endpoints, not flooded across every talkgroup or trunk. Busy endpoints defer and retry rather than deliberately interrupting an existing transmission.
Warning feeds, location checks and speech preparation run outside the normal voice-packet handlers. Unknown locations and stale or unusable warning data are held rather than guessed.
Service status and further information
Automatic broadcasts are enabled on VKDMR from 27 October 2026. New eligible warnings and material updates are relayed to nearby repeaters, Emergency-enabled POC handsets and located hotspots. Existing warnings present when the service is enabled are not replayed in a startup flood. Delivery remains subject to warning severity, valid locations, feed freshness and radio availability. Any separately announced test is explicitly identified as a test and does not indicate an actual hazard.
RFS information: © State of New South Wales (NSW Rural Fire Service). Bureau of Meteorology warning information: Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology. Queensland Fire Department, Queensland Government, Queensland Fire Department current bushfire incidents, sourced 29 October 2026, official dataset, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Refer to the issuing agencies for complete, current warnings.
South Australian Country Fire Service: official warning feed information. © State of Western Australia acting through the Department of Fire and Emergency Services. For current information go to www.emergency.wa.gov.au. Emergency WA's official conditions include CC BY-ND 4.0. The full original WA bulletin is retained; the on-air IPSC3 briefing selects original instructions and adds a supplementary introduction and official-source signoff.