Mr Barry was previously the CFA Barwon South-West regional director but was promoted to the role of assistant chief officer for the south-west as part of a shake-up that reduced the number of CFA regions from eight to five.

The south-west’s boundaries were left unchanged but the reform has given Mr Barry new duties.

He will be the CFA chief officer’s representative in the field and be responsible for the delivery of fire and emergency management in the region.

Mr Barry said regional directors were previously involved mainly in governance and business relationships but as ACO he was now in the chain of command for operational firefighting 

He has considerable experience as an operational officer at state, regional and district levels, having been in charge of major structural fires at petrol refineries and hazardous incidents.

He has worked through major fires including Ash Wednesday in 1983, the February 2009 Black Saturday fires and more recently was incident controller at the Hazelwood mine fire in Gippsland.

The CFA’s south-west region extends from Little River east of Geelong to the SA border and includes 262 brigades and about 11,000 volunteers.

Mr Barry will continue to be based in Geelong.

“My immediate focus is ensuring we are fully prepared for the upcoming fire season,” he said.

“We are gearing up for what we believe will be an early start to the fire season and our first priority is making sure we are ready to respond.”

Mr Barry said the challenges ahead included the transition to a new CFA structure that will shift more responsibility from the five CFA regions to the smaller CFA districts for roles such as business planning and budgeting.