He believes the complicated mapping system used to determine fire danger ratings is to blame and has called for its overhaul.

The total fire ban map places the Hepburn Shire in the Central district.

But there is a separate forecast area map for weather forecasts and bushfire danger ratings.

"I would have thought there'd be some correlation between fire ban and fire danger," Cr McClenaghan said.

"It's very confusing really to work out where you are."

Last week council staff were forced to backpedal after it appeared even they were not aware of which fire danger rating area they belonged to.

Fire danger ratings, including severe, extreme and catastrophic code red warnings, are issued according to forecast areas.

The Hepburn Shire is in the "North Central" forecast area.

But the council recently published information about code red procedures in the "Central" forecast area.

A council spokesperson told The Advocate the council had been aware of the "North Central" classification since its creation by the emergency management agencies.

But Cr McClenaghan said it was clear the confusion over the bushfire ratings was worse than he thought.

Cr McClenaghan said the way that Victoria was divided up should be standardised, by using only one of the two maps and following shire boundaries.

"The ifforecast areanf map is more precise and appears prominently in newspaper weather forecast pages," he said.

"This should be the only way used to divide up Victoria for the purpose of fire danger ratings and total fire bans so that there is no more confusion about what region or area your home or town is in."

Cr McClenaghan said council had consulted with the CFA extensively in the lead-up to the bushfire season, but the new maps had gone up, almost unannounced, at the very last minute.

"We're in a different district to Melbourne and a different district to Ballarat. If you go to the Bureau of Meteorology website and look up North Central, Seymour comes up," Cr McClenaghan said.