His warning comes after a grass fire broke out along the Sunraysia Highway at Waubra about 10.50am on Saturday.

CFA crews extinguished the blaze and suspected a cigarette butt thrown from a vehicle was to blame.

Although residents have been shivering through a chilly spring, a dry winter has created dangerous conditions around Ballarat before what is predicted to be a fierce summer.

Asked who should start preparing, Mr Lapsley said hobby farmers and residents on the outskirts were particularly at risk.

“Ballarat’s one of those places where people live near the bush but might not be used to the associated risks,” he said.

“It hasn’t just got people who live in town and out on the land, it’s got people who live in between, in the urban interface areas.

“So it’s important to understand those that live in this environment may not be used to it.”

Weather conditions in Victoria appear likely to increase the risk of a dangerous bushfire season, with a potentially earlier start in some parts of the state.

On Friday, Mr Lapsley will speak at Federation University’s Mount Helen Campus as part of a groundbreaking bushfire conference to be held over two days.

“It’s too easy to default to Melbourne, it’s important we host these things away from Melbourne,” he said.

Mr Lapsley’s return to Ballarat follows controversy surrounding the relocation of an orange Erickson Air-Crane back to the Melbourne suburb of Moorabbin last year.

Ballarat councillors and some politicians lobbied Mr Lapsley to reverse the decision to remove the big firefighting helicopter from the region.

In response, Mr Lapsley met with councillors, explaining the CFA’s pre-determined dispatch system, where smaller helicopters are sent to fires at the same time as fire trucks, unlike the air-crane, which is slower.

“People love the orange crane, it’s seen to be a silver bullet,” he said.

“We say it’s one of our bullets in the armory.”

Instead of the crane, a smaller Kestrel helitack 346 will be based in Ballarat.

The Victorian government recently announced a similar helicopter would also be based in Bacchus Marsh.

Mr Lapsley said the use of smaller helicopters worked effectively last summer.

“As soon as fire trucks are being paged, that helicopter is in the air and out of Ballarat,” he said.

“That has proved itself to be successful, without a doubt.”

As for what landholders could do this October to prepare, Mr Lapsley said people should start cutting grass and also have plans about where they would be on a hot day.

CFA lieutenant Arvin Gallagher, who attended the fire in Waubra on Saturday morning, hoped it would serve as a reminder about the looming danger even though most grass had not yet been yellowed by the sun.

“Everything may look green on the surface, but there’s dry grass underneath,” he said.

For more information about bushfire preparedness for properties around Ballarat, head to cfa.vic.gov.au/plan-prepare/fire-ready-kit/