ANOTHER District 16 strike team has left Ararat for the bushfire crisis in the state's east Thursday afternoon.
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The 16-strong team left the District 16 headquarters about 2pm and will spend the day travelling to Wodonga, where they will spend the night in motels before driving out to the staging area in Tallangatta.
District 16 volunteers talk about why they are going to help in the bushfire crisis:
"They'll pick up their trucks and there are four trucks, so there will be four members on each truck," District Commander Neville Collins said.
The team will take over from another District 16 team that has spent the past three days fighting fires there.
"What they will be doing is more asset protection at Corryong," Mr Collins said.
Asset protection involves working at the urban rural interface.
"They will be looking after any ember attack into residential areas or things like that," Mr Collins said.
"They might find a dwelling and they'll protect those dwellings."
Conditions are expected to worsen on Friday, with a cool change bringing some relief over the weekend.
"Tomorrow is a spike day and there's going to be severe weather," Mr Collins said.
"The Fire Danger Index is going to be elevated. Then the (cool) change is probably coming through earlier Friday and then probably Saturday and Sunday is gong to be cooler days.
"The Fire Danger Index takes into account your relative humidity, your wind and moisture content, your dryness - all those gather together and make a rating."
Friday will be a Total Fire Ban in the Mallee, North Country, North East, Gippsland,North Central, West and South Gippsland.
Another team will head up on Sunday to take over from this team.
"They'll start work on Monday ... and we've got another strike team we're planning on now," Mr Collins said.
"It's a slip-on strike team - they're like ultra light tankers and ... they'll go to Gippsland tomorrow (Friday)."
There are currently 4000 volunteers on the books in District 16 but not all of them are active, and Mr Collins said the recent events had further highlighted the need for more volunteers.
"It's a challenging time," he said.
"A lot of our volunteers are getting into that older age group so we're certainly looking for younger members to come on board, that's for sure."
Mr Collins encouaraged anyone interested to inquire at the District 16 headquarters, talk to their local members, or visit www.cfa.vic.gov.au for more information.
For information on fire ratings, click here.
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