 Welcome to part one of a four-part series focusing on the CFA recruit course. Recruits are from many different backgrounds, including current CFA volunteers and come from all over the state of Victoria. Operations Officer Chris Bingham, along with some instructors and recruits from the CFA recruit course, will take you through what happens in the 18-week course. The course is set up to take people through learning and introduction to base level skills and once they've got them mastered then they start applying those skills in the performance of the role of a firefighter. And then finally at the end of the course, they're operating in commensurate with how we would expect a firefighter to operate safely on the fire ground when they go to their fire station. The structure of the course is based over 18 weeks. We start off with a bit of team building at the start. We move into some theory area in the classroom. Towards the end of the course we start getting into the practical side of things out in the PLE, Practical Learning Environment area. Most of the training is based out of VemTech in Craigieburn. We utilise VemTech Huntley and also utilise VemTech Banghome. And this year, Recruit Course 3 utilised VemTech in SAIL. And we also utilise Bendigo Mines, some fire stations right throughout the state. The recruiting process is designed to assist people both to be successful in getting to a recruit course but also to prepare them for the rigours of what the recruit course will present to them. The recruitment process is an application online, first of all. And then we proceed to a beep test and also aptitude test. From there we go to a screening interview. We've got the physical challenge and the final interview. And hopefully if you're accepted from there, the call saying that you're going ahead. Recruits focus on a whole different range of skill sets. In firefighting industry, you have to have soft skills which are equally as important as a hard skills. And obviously the hard skills are the ability to control hoses and put water on fire. But there's also the soft skills and that's about the empathy with the community and the public, the community engagement. Connection with our fire safe youth, undertaking fire safe kids programs. So that sort of community education type role. There's also the skills about conducting emergency medical response. So some first aid and some advanced first aid skills to help preserve life and the protection of then life and property. We also do some specialist hazmat skills. And we touch on some technical rescue skills although it's very much an introduction at the recruit stage which leads then further on to a more awareness and training when they graduate and go on their fire station. In the beginning, it's very much on the side of the theoretical. So you spend a lot of time inside learning all the theory of firefighting and then sort of halfway through you start coming outside and you start doing a lot of drills outside. And the course currently is four days on, four days off. The four days off, four days on rationale has a couple of different reasons for its introduction this year. With the introduction of so many recruits coming into CFA, we have to have an adequate strategy and scheduling to allow between four and five successive recruit courses across a year, that's the first reason. The other reason is that with this scheduling it allows a little bit more time at home for the recruits. So obviously the four days in the recruit course they get to focus on the recruit course. The four days home gives them more time at home with the family. The four on four off structure for me has been great. It's given me a chance to study and learn all the theory side of things but I also have to put a lot of time into fitness, strength and cardio both. You really need to manage your time, make sure that you save enough time for both your physical and your study but also have a bit of balance and have a personal life in there as well. It gets you prepared for shift life on station so currently we work two day shifts, two night shifts on station with four days off and the four days on, four days off sort of helps getting you prepared into that rotation. The theoretical side of the course is quite involved and it definitely surprised me with the amount of knowledge that you need to know and just the variety of it as well. Theory is the basis of everything that we do out here and everything that you see behind me so without doing that theory you'd really struggle.