 G'day, I'm Euan Ferguson, CFA Chief Officer. I'd like to share a couple of key messages with you in preparation for the forthcoming fire season. I guess the first thing is that towards the end of October as we film this, there's every indication that the fire season might come on a couple of weeks early. And as in previous couple of years, we may see a pretty busy fire season. There are five key messages I'd like to reinforce both now and throughout the fire season. The first is everyone comes home safe. We operate in a dynamic and inherently dangerous environment on the bushfire ground. There is a constant risk of burn over, falling trees, dehydration, fatigue and also driving vehicle driving incidents. Each of these we've established controls for, but in your briefings, both on the fire ground and in preparation for the fire season, I'd like you to think about those five risks, the controls that we've established for them, and reinforce our desire that everyone comes home safe after the job. The next key point is about hitting new fires hard and fast, obviously allowing for safety first. New fires, when they're just getting going, are best tackled by having a heavy weight of attack and making sure that we deal with the fire quickly, mopping up with the extra resources which are oncoming, and then everyone getting back to their workplace or their family as quickly as they can. Response to new fires needs to be fast, needs to be determined and it needs to be thorough, obviously allowing for safety first. So hit fires hard and fast, allowing for safety first. When significant fires get going, our priority needs to be issuing information and warnings to the community. The community has a right and they demand that CFA and fire agencies tell them about changes in the risk environment. When new fires start or they start developing, when major fires are progressing through the landscape, we need to ensure that we identify the progression of those fires. We identify settlements, assets and people who might be at risk from those fires. We formulate information and warnings using our standard templates, supported by other means of communicating to the community and we ensure that those warnings are accurate, timely, tailored and relevant to the local situation. Importantly, our messaging needs to be meaningful to the community. They need to understand what it is we're trying to tell them. The next key point is that we put out fires in order to protect life and property. This might seem pretty obvious to you, but we have seen criticism over the last couple of years where in the views of some, CFA needs to have been more assertive and purposeful in putting out fires. Obviously safety comes first, but I encourage each of you, particularly leaders in the organisation, to take action to put out fire perimeters as you see them as best you can. If you can't find fire perimeter to put out, then obviously our focus should be on protecting properties, dwellings, farm assets and if you can't find any firefighting to do, then maybe call the sector commander or the operations officer to ask for retasking or you might want to consider knocking on doors and finding out what jobs there might be in a recently fire affected community. We put out fires in order to protect lives and property. The final message is about working as one with other agencies. We work as one. It's important that our efforts in firefighting are joined up with the emergency management Victoria, DEPI, Parks Victoria, MFB, SES, Interstate Fire Services, Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria, local government and a whole host of other organisations. We cannot operate successfully if we operate alone. We need to be talking to those other agencies on the fire ground, sharing tasks, ensuring that we have an attitude that any fire that's burning is a fire that's burning within the State of Victoria and we have a moral and legal responsibility to tackle that fire. We want to have a tenure-blind approach so it doesn't matter whether the fire is on public land or private property. We'll do our very best to suppress that fire and protect valuable assets. So in closing, I just want to reinforce those five key messages from me to you for the fire season. The first one, everyone comes home safe. Secondly, we give priority to issuing information and warnings to the community who are at risk. Thirdly, we hit fires hard and fast but allow for safety first. Four, we put out fires in order to protect life and property. And finally, we work as one with other agencies in a seamless and integrated way where we promote interoperability and working as one team. I just want to close by saying thank you for the work that you do. Over summer, in fact all year round, CFA members, other emergency services do essential work in protecting life and property, responding to the calls to help from individual citizens and communities. You do a great job and I thank you for that. I understand that there is a huge amount of work involved in preparing and planning for every fire season. I thank you for that pre-planning and preparation. It will be essential in making sure that our operations work seamlessly and smoothly when we are called upon to react. Thank you for what you do. Good luck for the next three to five months over the fire season and look forward to seeing you on the fire ground. Thank you.