Public hearings have resumed at the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, with hard questions continuing to be directed at senior fire officers.

Department of Sustainability and Environment state duty officer Andrew Graystone was based in the Melbourne control centre on February 7, and last week conceded he knew little about the emerging Murrindindi fire that killed 38 people.

That prompted a retort from royal commissioner Ron McLeod, who said: “It is hard to understand how you could reasonably allocate resources in the absence of knowledge of a very serious fire emerging.

“As state duty officer, being unaware of it for at least, it seems, almost a couple of hours, couldn’t be described other than an extremely serious breakdown in communication within the system.”

It has also been revealed that two maps produced by Country Fire Authority staff predicting the path of a Black Saturday bushfire have gone missing.

The royal commission last week began examining building standards with technical input from representatives of the Master Builders’ Association and the Fire Protection Association of Australia.

A major topic for discussion was the potential regulatory standards for the construction of safety features such as underground bunkers.