Establish firebreaks, have water on hand and keep an eye on the burn at all times.
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This is the advice from the CFA after recent data revealed the Kangaroo Flat area had the most runaway burn offs across Victoria in 2023.
There were 88 burn offs in Kangaroo Flat which escaped the control of the land owner.
This is compared to the 42 in Melton, 41 in Kerang and 36 in Swan Hill.
These four areas made up the top regions within the CFA's North West district for escaped burn offs.
Steve Pitcher, assistant chief fire officer for CFA District 2 Kangaroo Flat, said he understood most escaped burn offs were by people with good intentions.
He said people can be caught out when the seasons begin to change.
"It's mostly land owners and residents trying to do the right thing by themselves and the community and that helps the fire agencies and the CFA in managing hazards fuel loads and risks," he said.
"But it's those transition periods when we think we're out of the summer and the fire restrictions are lifted, people attempt to do the right thing and at times, unfortunately they get caught out at really no fault of their own.
"But we've got some guidance and some tips that we provide to the landowners that are doing the burning off to try and minimise injury to themselves, but also damage to their property and the nuisance to the community."
In total, there were 815 escaped burn offs last year in Victoria.
Of those, 69 per cent of them had no record of being registered and 113 required more than five CFA vehicles.
Three simple steps
Mr Pitcher said basic advice from the CFA included establishing firebreaks, having water available and constantly being vigilant during burn offs.
"It's as simple as making sure you've got a firebreak established where you're doing your burn off - that's no less than three metres around the area and it is all cleared of flammable materials," he said.
"Also ensuring that you've got water on hand and that you don't leave it unsupervised.
"Our overarching message is don't leave your burn off unattended ... most big fires start small and they normally get the opportunity to become big when there aren't witnesses to stop it."
Mr Pitcher said another thing people could do when carrying out burn offs was to notify the CFA and their neighbours.
This not only meant people did not panic when they saw smoke but also there were extra hands at the ready if things did go wrong.
