Federal and state governments should investigate whether it is technically possible to send warning messages to mobile phones, the second phase of a national telephony-based warning system, by the 2009-10 bushfire season, the interim Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission report says.

In a meeting not related to the current Royal Commission, an AMTA delegation met this week with the Attorney General’s Department to impart the lessons learned from the 2009 Victorian bushfire disaster with specific reference to the targeted emergency broadcast SMS delivered by mobile carriers during the crisis.

AMTA highlighted the need for an urgent interim approach to guide any future use of targeted emergency SMS initiatives based on the '09 experience noting that the 09/10 bushfire season was only weeks away and that the time needed to design and implement the ideal solution for the 09/10 summer had passed.

The Interim Report also notes that guidelines should also be developed for the use of fire station sirens to alert communities to the threat of bushfires.

The commissioners - chairman Bernard Teague, Susan Pascoe and Ron McLeod - also recommended the Victorian government identify "neighbourhood safer places" for people to seek refuse at during fires.

Victorian Premier John Brumby foreshadowed that recommendation last month when he announced that work would get underway to identify "safer places".

The commissioners backed away from using the term evacuation, instead preferring to use relocation. Under the recommendations, incident controllers from the CFA and Department of Sustainability and Environment should decide whether relocation is necessary, the report said.

The commission's final report is due to be handed down next July.

The Black Saturday fires killed 173 people and destroyed more than 2,000 properties.