 This DVD contains really important information that all of us should know about. For the season ahead, who knows? But what we do know is there's a lot of moisture in the ground. The weather is already starting to warm, and that will probably result in substantial grass and crop growth for this fire season. I'd be pretty confident in saying we're going to see an above-average grass fire risk this year, so we need to be prepared for fast-moving, multiple grass fires, the impact of the wind change on grass fires, and how we deal with fast-moving grass fires. I urge you all to think about the tactics and strategies that we adopt and use tactical discussion exercises or tactical exercises without troops to develop some scenarios about how you would manage fast-moving grass fires in your area on a bad day. So we've got a new direction in Victoria since the 2009 fire season, and one of the parts of that new direction is we operate as one integrated fire force. We have a couple of common aims. The first is to recognise the primacy of life. That goes hand-in-hand with our safety first philosophy. Many of the changes in our systems of work reinforce these themes of primacy of life, safety of our firefighters, and warnings to the community. There's been some significant changes, and we've got a new policy around evacuation, which will take effect for the first time for this fire season. It's a very significant change for us and for the community, and we need to pay particular thought and attention to how we're going to implement that. We've seen changes in our system of commander control, and this video will talk about changes in divisional command points and transfer of commander control. I want to reinforce the importance of establishing local commander control, strong local commander control, strong leadership on the fire ground during the initial stages of the incident, is absolutely essential. Also, it's going to be essential to ensure that there is an orderly and managed handover process from that local commander control up to a level three incident controller when the level three teams are established. In closing, could I also reinforce the importance of leadership on the fire ground? As fire and emergency service members, we exercise leadership at all times in all situations. Everyone is a leader. Everyone is also a follower. But think deeply about your role in providing leadership in situations that you get yourself into. We rely on you to think about your decision-making, to make those decisions using good judgment and taking care of your own people and the community who we serve. Thanks very much for your efforts. The MFB's prevention, preparedness, response to grass and bush fires is predominantly around the urban fringe. These areas include the southern end of the Plenty Gorge, Warrandite and Templestowe. But in reality, there is still a grass fire threat around many areas of the urban fringe. Following the significant rain periods at the beginning of this year, and if we have a period of prolonged hot, dry weather, fast-moving grass fires will be a concern. The most important job, whereas firefighters and officers have, is to protect life, property and the environment. In preparing our communities at risk, we will again play a part supporting the Victorian Government's fire-ready program and engaging those residents at risk from grass and bush fire. At the MFB, we have built capacity to provide people with timey, relevant and tailored information and warnings so the public can be informed and make appropriate decisions to the threat that is present. The MFB has been working closely with all emergency service organisations to ensure greater interoperability, in particular with CFA and DSC. This includes MFB appliances having updated radio communications to talk with other fire agencies. We will also be participating in the three metropolitan regions' exercises under the Project Bellinus program to rehearse the enacting of arrangements to manage major bush fires. We have also programmed equipment maintenance and skills maintenance for our firefighters to enable us to meet requests for resources within and outside of the MFB area. We will also work with Victoria Police to support the shelter-in-place bush fire safety policy. MFB focus is to ensure that a request is handled in a timely manner, whether it is to grass, bush fire or any other emergency which is within our risk or hazard profile. Thank you. Keep safe for the forthcoming fire season. I want to really emphasise two fundamentals I believe are essential in our success in fighting fires across Victoria this summer. The first is preparedness and the second is doing our roles really, really well. The worldwide evidence is that if we are well prepared as in that if we train well, exercise and then set up really well coming into bad days, then the chances of success in any incident is dramatically lifted. At the moment we train really well, I believe, our fundamental in training is really good. Exercising is something that we haven't concentrated on enough in the past and I believe we've got a good program of exercising this year and I'm really asking everybody to treat that really seriously and exercise truly as if it is an incident and it is a serious event. If we do that and working with our peers and working with our team, then I believe we'll significantly improve how we do handle incidents on those bad days. The second point I want to emphasise is doing the basics, doing the fundamentals of our roles really well. I want to give an example there of fire line control. It's essential in those first few hours of a fire that we take control of the resources of a fire and there is a real basic strategy of how we do manage that critical period of a fire. The example last year was Tostoree. Even in the mild summer we had a very fast moving, high intensity fire which caused significant control problems, particularly in the first period of that fire. We've learnt a lot from the investigations on that fire and one of the reasons I'm emphasising today about preparedness and that early control on the fire line comes from looking closely at that Tostoree fire. So it's essential that we are not complacent as we go into summer. Fire is part of the Victorian environment. We're going to have bad fire days as the grass dries off and the bush dries out. We will get those bad fire days. If we are going to protect Victorians and protect our firefighters it's essential we work together. That's about preparing together, exercising and training together and on those bad days we set up ready to go. This will ensure that we give the absolute best possible protection for the Victorian community.