LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Every week, thousands of Australians are moving into new homes on what's called the urban fringe.

We've heard about new suburbs popping up without sufficient public transport, schools or supermarkets. Now, it seems, a Victorian community faces a shortfall in emergency services.

A fatal blaze on Boxing Day has exposed serious flaws in the state's firefighting capability.

7.30 has obtained a leaked emergency recording that highlights significant delays in the time it took crews to enter a burning house, where a woman was trapped.

Paid firefighters say too much is being asked of volunteer crews, who are taking on increasingly challenging work.

Ruth Lamperd reports.

RUTH LAMPERD, REPORTER: It's 3:46 on Boxing Day: and a family's home is alight in Armstrong Creek, just outside Geelong.

(Audio recording of emergency services communications)

VOICE 1: Reports of a gas bottle on fire, Armstrong Creek.

VOICE 2: The caller stated the gas bottle has exploded and is on fire. Four people evacuating to the front of the house. The flames are going up the wall of the house.

(Recording ends)

ROSCOE, NEIGHBOUR: Well, it was just basically a "woof' and up she went, like a Roman candle and...

RUTH LAMPERD: Neighbours made frantic calls for help.

ROSCOE: Oh well, I made the phone call, and probably other people did.

(Aerial footage of fire engine on road at night, siren wailing)

RUTH LAMPERD: Career firefighters en route from Belmont Station called to check if a backup crew is on its way.

(Audio recording of emergency services communications)

VOICE 3: Ah, Vic Fire, can I please confirm that we haven't had anyone else turn out to this call yet?

VOICE 2: Negative, Belmont pumper.

We've now received approximately six other calls regarding this, saying it's well alight.

Word back from SSO (senior station officer) considers the structure fire not yet under control. And also further information has come through, stating that a wheelchair-bound person is possibly still inside.

(Recording ends)

RUTH LAMPERD: At 3:59am, the Belmont crew arrives. They only have enough firefighters to go in one entrance. They go in the front.

(Audio recording of emergency services communications)

FIREFIGHTER: We might need multiple ambulances at this location. I've got one male conscious and breathing. He's out of the house. He's about 25. And I've got one disabled person still reported inside.

(Recording ends)

RUTH LAMPERD: A 26-year-old woman is trapped in a room near the back of the house.

Two volunteer crews are available, but aren't trained to help the Belmont team with this type of rescue. Finally, at 4:15am, a career crew from Geelong arrives and enters the rear of the house.

ANDREW GIBSON, PAID FIREFIGHTER, COUNTRY FIRE AUTHORITY: When you go in, the smoke is really, really thick. You can't see your hand in front of your face.

(Audio recording of emergency services communications)

FIREFIGHTER: We've got a single-storey house. Ah, it's totally involved in fire. Primary and secondary search has been completed: located all the occupants and we're liaising with police on scene.

RUTH LAMPERD: Geelong firefighter Andrew Gibson found the woman's body.

ANDREW GIBSON: When we were conducting our search, we found the area that the missing person was going to be located in generally. And then, when we found them:, yeah, we knew fairly well straight away that there was no sign of life.

It's 29 minutes since the first emergency call. A woman is dead.

RUTH LAMPERD: The Country Fire Authority aims to get to fires within eight minutes. Neighbours have questioned why it took so long.

Until recently, the Armstrong Creek area was open farmland with few houses. But now, 12 families a week are moving into the city's fringes.

Like urban sprawls around the country, the planners know when the people are coming. But the emergency services aren't there when the people arrive.

How can country volunteer brigades, equipped for bushfire fighting, be expected to put out house fires, where every second counts?

On the night of the fire, three stations were called at 3:46am. Two were volunteer stations. The third, Belmont, had career firefighters waiting.

Belmont headed to the fire first. Grovedale volunteers called in, saying they were on their way to the fire. Belmont arrived on the scene 13 minutes after the first emergency call came through. The Grovedale crew arrived one minute after; then Connewarre, three minutes after that.

Neither volunteer brigade had the equipment or training to fight such a ferocious fire.

Belmont needed backup inside the house, so at 4:04 the Geelong crew, which had been sent to Belmont Station as backfill, was called to the fire. At 4:15, they arrived, almost 30 minutes after the alarm was raised.

Career firefighter Adam Matthews says it's not the fault of country volunteer brigades that they aren't equipped to fight suburban fires.

ADAM MATTHEWS, PAID FIREFIGHTER, COUNTRY FIRE AUTHORITY: The Armstrong Creek area or precinct is covered by the Connewarre Fire Brigade: so that's a rural fire brigade that was formed in the 1940s.

It's a brigade with a couple of appliances or firefighting vehicles, typically designed for fighting grassfires. Now, all of a sudden, we've dropped a suburb with 10,000 people on their doorstep, basically.

STEVE WARRINGTON, CHIEF OFFICER, COUNTRY FIRE AUTHORITY: We are well equipped to look after urban areas. In fact, that's our primary role. And people in Victoria probably don't understand that CFA is one of the biggest urban firefighting services.

To be fair, where we struggle - as does all infrastructure services, including emergency service - is in the growth corridors.

RUTH LAMPERD: Nobody can say for certain if the woman, whose family don't want to be named, would still be alive if the Geelong crew had been there in half the time - but firefighters agree she would have stood a better chance.

Armstrong Creek local Jack Bolton is concerned for his young family.

JACK BOLTON, ARMSTRONG CREEK RESIDENT: You know, something like this... yeah. Yeah, could have been, you know, looked after a bit quicker. People might feel a bit more safer out here.

This suburb here is growing extremely fast and if something was to happen again, I'm sure, like, you know, heads will roll, because it shouldn't happen.

RUTH LAMPERD: 7.30 has obtained a dossier recording dozens of incidents in Victoria on the urban fringe, where volunteers had delayed responses or insufficient crews.

CAPTIONS: Delayed response. October 21, 2017. 3:09 am. Incident: South Morang housefire.

Delayed response. October 23, 2017. 8:44 am. Incident: Wantirna South basketball stadium alarm.

Failure to respond. October 26, 2017. 9:11 am. Incident: Carrum Downs kitchen fire report.

Delayed response. November 9, 2017. 10:06 am. Incident: Ferntree Gully house fire.

Insufficient crew. January 22,2018. 11:06 am. Incident: Alarm at Federation University, Churchill.

(Footage of industrial protest by firefighters)

PROTESTERS (chanting): Save the CFA! Save the CFA! Save the CFA!

RUTH LAMPERD: For years, an industrial dispute in Victoria between career firefighters and their bosses has grabbed headlines and claimed political scalps. But lost in the noise is a system firefighters like Geoff Barker say needs overhauling to keep people safe in growing urban fringes.

GEOFF BARKER, PAID FIREFIGHTER, COUNTRY FIRE AUTHORITY: More often than not we find ourselves the first firefighting appliance on scene and we've had to travel further distances to get there.

So it's often quite a dilemma for firefighters when we're planning our firefighting operations: we do commit crews inside? Is backup coming?

Because we do - I've been in situations myself where we've been on scene, we're committed to a firefight and find ourselves, you know, with no backup behind.

And that's no fault of volunteers. It's no criticism on volunteers. It's just the current fire service, as we see it at the moment.

It shouldn't take a fatality to trigger off fire service reform.

RUTH LAMPERD: Leigh Wicks is one volunteer whose rural patch has exploded with urban development. He's not the only one feeling the heat.

LEIGH WICKS, VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER, COUNTRY FIRE AUTHORITY: There's more pressure on us to turn out quicker. We've probably gone from 30 turnouts a year to over 100, at this stage.

Most of the members have to work, are committed to work, and they have family lives as well. So they're not here 24-7.

Yeah, there's definitely talk about a station at Armstrong Creek and I believe one will come, one day. But until then, we have to do what we can as a brigade.

RUTH LAMPERD: Since the Armstrong Creek fire, have CFA processes changed?

STEVE WARRINGTON: So straight after that fire, we did an immediate assessment of it.

And we've increased our response into Armstrong Creek and we've done that for the immediate, foreseeable future until we're at a stage where we can actually build and put a proper fire station in place there.

ADAM MATTHEWS: We all join the fire service because we want to serve the community and protect them. All firefighters have that in them.

So you know, when anybody dies, we all feel it.

It's frustrating to know that there's probably things that can be implemented that would help improve the system, without a doubt.