VicEmergency 4+

State of Victoria - Department of Justice

Designed for iPad

    • Free

Screenshots

Description

VicEmergency is the official Victorian Government app for emergency warnings and information. Download VicEmergency, set up a user profile and watch zones to ensure you receive official warnings and information for areas that interest you.

Watch the VicEmergency video at www.youtube.com/channel/UCskGgVGdfEp1C3BMiiwAyzQ
To review support articles or submit a request, visit http://support.emergency.vic.gov.au

Main Features:
• Live incident map showing current warnings, planned burns and other types of incidents across Victoria.***
• Simple to create a profile and use watch zones that ensure you get official warnings for your local area. Warnings and information* are pushed out to a user's phone when issued by Victoria’s emergency services. 
• GPS integration to determine your current location** and surrounding incidents. 
• Emergency Warnings, Warnings, Advice and information as issued by Victoria’s emergency services
• Share incidents and warnings with friends and family.
• View forecast Fire Danger Ratings on the map.
• View today's and tomorrow’s Total Fire Ban status.

* Your device must have an internet connection to receive warnings and information issued by Victorian emergency services. 
** To view your current location, GPS must be switched on and location functionality enabled.
*** Map symbols represent the origin of the emergency, not its current location or spread.

The VicEmergency app is just one tool to assist you to access warnings and information about emergencies, however you should never rely on just one information channel. Emergency services use a range of other information channels including SKY TV, ABC local radio, some commercial and designated community radio stations, VicEmergency Hotline on 1800 226 226, VicEmergency website on www.emergency.vic.gov.au and VicEmergency Twitter and Facebook.

Are you getting a message asking you to turn on notifications? You need to ensure that push notifications are enabled specifically for the VicEmergency app, as follows:

For iOS10, iOS9, iOS8 and iOS6:
1. Click on the Settings icon and then select Notifications. 
2. Scroll down, click the VicEmergency icon
3. Ensure 'Allow Notifications" or "Notification Centre" (iOS6) at top of the screen is set to On. 
4. We recommend that you set Alert Style as 'Banners' or Alerts' and ensure that Sounds and "Show on Lock Screen" or "View in Lock Screen" (iOS6) are set to On. 

For iOS7: 
1. Open the device's Settings icon and then select 'Notification Center'.
2. Under 'Access on Lock Screen', check that 'Notifications View' is On (showing as green).
3. Scroll further down and ensure that VicEmergency is in the list under INCLUDE. Click it to open it.
4. At the top, set Alert Style as 'Banners' or Alerts'
5. Then ensure that everything in this section is turned On - ‘Badge App Icon’, ‘Sounds’, 'Show in Notification Center', 'Show on Lock Screen’, etc (all should be showing as green).

What’s New

Version 6.4.0

- Adopted the Australian Fire Danger Rating System which standardises our use of fire danger ratings nationally.
- Updated our base map to the latest Spatial Vision VicMap Book
- Improved compatibility with the latest devices

Ratings and Reviews

2.9 out of 5
626 Ratings

626 Ratings

Monique1976 ,

The app that cries wolf

Sooooo many notifications. Really, do I need to be alerted to the Riverine flood watch every 2 hours when the floods have been going on for weeks? No, no I don’t. Has anything changed? No? Then shut up already! One notification about the floods each day would be plenty, and it doesn’t need to beep! If I turn off notifications because I’m so sick and tired of being beeped at over nothing, then the app is pretty useless if there’s a real emergency in my watch zone isn’t it! I see that someone else left pretty much the same comment 2 years ago which you say was passed on to the developers yet nothing has changed.
The app is great in many ways, but seriously, fix this already. Reduce the number of notifications, and only have them beep if it is a true emergency that requires immediate attention. Otherwise it gets ignored and is pointless.
One more suggestion. Give us different tones that we can choose from. You could even go all out and let us choose different tones for different warnings or different times. So say if there’s an emergency that means I need to wake up and evacuate, I could choose a tone that would wake me during my sleep hours. Your current beeps don’t wake me because they happen so often and are usually pointless and I’ve tuned them out.
Come on developers. It can’t be that hard. It could be an amazing app if you just tweak it a bit.

Mvfc75 ,

Suggestions

The app does what it needs, but I could use some things. Here’s my suggestions:

Show more detailed information on the pop ups, things like fire size, what tyoe of fire (not just structure fire or bushfire etc) have it say what it’s doing, even if it doesn’t have an emergency warning, just give a little info of what it’s doing.

-a main idea would be putting what appliances and what service is going, so if it’s a fire, you put what FRV appliances are attending for instance: structure fire, attending units: P1A P1B etc. and then if it’s an EMR call you could put attending services: Ambulance Victoria, Fire Rescue Victoria. Then out like the call signs etc

National App! ,

Not as informative or clear as NSW FiresNMe app

I live on the VIC side of the VIC/ NSW border. So to keep informed we have to monitor two apps (NSW Fires Near Me and the Vic Emergency app).
The screen layout and functions on the NSW version is far simpler to follow and when you select an incident far more informative.
Vic app is trying to do too much on front screen so much so that overlays make reading harder like the warning area overlays.
And when you click an event the info is very limited or useless in comparison to the NSW app.

If you provide an option at least for users to turn layers on and off this might make the front incident alert clearer by allowing us to turn off overlays.

The most important info is where is the fire, how big is it, what has already burned, where is it headed (influence of current and coming weather), predicted spread, level of warning.
Much of this could be explained or shown on the map when ticked on/off by users. That way keeping the simplified view clean.

A National app would be more useful with a common layout and information. This would be better for travellers moving across states and for the many communities that live in state border regions, and for those that want to monitor impact to interstate relatives or friends.
Otherwise we have to use multiple apps with different layouts and symbols - crazy in this day given the seriousness and frequency of bushfires?

Fires don’t have borders!

Developer Response ,

Hi,
Thank you for getting in touch with us to provide your valued feedback. We have passed your comments onto our developers.
Kind regards,
Wolf

App Privacy

The developer, State of Victoria - Department of Justice, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer's privacy policy.

Data Linked to You

The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:

  • Contact Info
  • Identifiers

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

  • Usage Data
  • Diagnostics

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

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