 Hi, I'm Graeme Armstrong, Operations Manager Regional Commander in the North-East region. I live and work in the interface areas around Melbourne and for our first responding crews in the rural, urban and interface areas, there's some big challenges and issues that we'd like to just refresh you from the package that was provided to you last year and is included now in the Chief Officers package for 2017-2018. We need to ensure that first responding crew crews are aware of the dynamic risk assessment, safe person approach in the rural, urban, interface areas, particularly in the early stages of these firefights where there may not be fire ground management or any other type of structure on the fire ground when the first recruits do respond in. Line Defence. A line defence is used when conditions would normally allow for an offensive attack but you don't have enough resources to mount one in time. It involves stopping the fire from coming close to structures using hose lines or tactical back-burning. Ember Defence. An ember defence is used when the approaching fire front is too intense to be suppressed by offensive means and there is significant ember attack. It involves extinguishing small fires as and when they occur. When firefighting you should operate from safe positions behind suitable shielding and pull back to a safer refuge if you need to. Backstop Defence. A backstop defence is used when there is no safe defensible space around buildings or if the fire is too extreme to defend structures until the fire front has passed. When firefighting you should withdraw a short distance to safe refuge. After the fire front has passed you should move forward to put out any spot fires or structures on fire. CFA's conducted reviews of burnovers and entrapments since 2009. Examining these incidents that occurred around the rural, urban, interface areas have found that generally our equipment and our training has stood up very well. During these reviews, air is for improvement that CFA has found to involve firstly information availability early in the firefight in the rural, urban, interface areas. Information generally at that point in time is pretty poor and that requires improvement to ensure the situational awareness for first responder crews about what this fire is doing and the risk that it poses to crews and to the community. Also management of the fire ground in the early stages and first response into the rural, urban, interface areas is generally absent. So quickly establishing fire ground structures and management of the fire is important to ensure that first responder crews and incoming crews are managed well onto the fire ground and apply the appropriate firefighting strategy. So in summary, first responding crews into rural, urban, interface areas need to ensure they apply the principles of the safe person approach and dynamic risk assessment that there's early fire ground leadership and management established so further incoming crews can be gathered up and made part of the firefight and also to ensure that you apply the tactics of either EMBA line or backstop defence in the rural, urban, interface areas. So review the doctrine, review the practices that we've done from last year and previous years and stay safe. Have a great summer.