 In an average Victorian summer, there are about 200 harvest-related fires. What starts as a small fire can quickly spread to the whole paddock within minutes, making it vital to be prepared. This video outlines some basic steps that will help protect your investment and livelihood. Burnie Della Huntie's family have been cropping at Rosscray Farm in the Whimmera region of Victoria for generations and have long-term associations with CFA. Only generally around about 20% of the fires start mechanical with failed bearings and belts and so on and so forth. 80% of fires start around the engine bay, around the exhaust and manifold and turbo, the debris on the exhaust and excessive heat. The ignition temperature differs depending on the crop. Lupins and pulses have a lower ignition temperature than serial crops and are more likely to cause a fire. Your work begins before the header even starts rolling. You should make fire safety a part of your harvest management plan and include four metre fuel breaks around the harvest area. Also, plan where water carts will be positioned within the paddock so if a fire does start, you can act quickly to put it out. Just making sure everyone's informed on the property at harvest time of where the fire units are, where they're going to be located on a particular day with the wind direction. Make sure that they're all on the same UHF channel. If you have a water cart on site, it should be dedicated on the back of a four-wheel drive or a slip-on unit. Just make sure everyone in the paddock and who's working around the paddock knows where that is and that's accessible. It takes two to three minutes to discover a fire started by a header. In the 10 to 12 minutes, it'll take for you to get water onto it. A fire can grow to 80 metres by 100 metres. On a day with 35 kilometre per hour winds, a fire can grow to 10 to 15 hectares within 30 minutes. By monitoring conditions before and during harvest, you can certainly cut down the fire risk. Wind is the biggest factor, so if the wind's above 35 kilometres an hour, it's probably best to stop harvesting. And if the conditions change, then you can adjust accordingly. CFA and VWF have reduced a voluntary grain harvest guide to make it easier. Check your wind speed against the RH and temperature to see when you should stop harvesting. Fire typically happens when you get a build-up of dust and debris on and around the exhaust manifold or turbo. Exhaust temperatures of modern equipment can be as much as 1,000 degrees hotter than older machines. Backing off your ground speed one or two kilometres per hour can reduce these temperatures to below ignition point. A good strategy is to slow down when wind is blowing dust and debris into the header and speed up again when harvesting up wind. Before harvest, clean down the header. Check and make sure all the belts, all the bearings are all in good working order. During harvest, you should clean down the header frequently because dust and debris is the source of the fuel on the fire. It's impossible to rule out fire altogether, but if you follow these simple steps, plan ahead and adjust your strategy with the conditions, you can cut down the risk of fire this harvest.