Australia leases US firebombing aircraft in the northern winter. So what happens when LA burns in January?

Australia risks being isolated from international firefighters and water-bombing aircraft in its next bushfire season after the mid-winter Los Angeles blaze showed how northern hemisphere resources could be required at home year-round.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the images out of LA would be triggering for Australians who had experienced bushfires and showed the influence of climate change on fire seasons.

“This is not a normal event,” Albanese said. “More and more, we see a pattern where there is a new normal of more extreme weather events and more intensity to them.”

Fire ravages a home amid high winds in the Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles.Credit: AP

Former Fire and Rescue NSW commissioner Greg Mullins said fire services around the world were confronting a new paradigm in which the ability to call on help from other nations while their firefighting resources lay unused in winter was evaporating.

“What they’ve been talking about for years is a 12-month fire season in California, rather than four months that ends in November,” Mullins said.

“Fire season used to be quite distinct. The North American fire season would finish and ours would start. We’d be able to share things like large aircraft and if we had big fires, we could call them and get specialist firefighters, incident management personnel.”

That is changing. The current fires in Victoria and recent spot fires in NSW’s Hunter Valley meant Australia was unlikely to respond to any US request for help, said Mullins, who leads the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action group.

But Albanese said Australia, which had not received a formal request to assist in California, was “always available to help our American friends”.

The overlapping fire seasons also pose a risk for Australia’s ability to call on extra US aircraft if needed to bolster the country’s fleet of about 170 craft, crucial parts of which are leased from overseas.

Of the six large water-bombing planes under management, only NSW’s Boeing 737, which has a 19,000-litre tank capacity, is Australian-owned. Other large bombers, such as three Bombardier planes with a 10,000-litre capacity, are leased.

The famed firefighting helicopter Elvis, pictured in 2015, has retired from service.Credit: Wolter Peeters

Around 17 medium-sized helicopters, including Black Hawks, are available this fire season under a mix of state ownership and leases. More than 100 smaller water-bombing helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft are Australian-owned and registered.

The best-known firefighting aircraft in Australia, a helicopter dubbed Elvis, rose to fame in the Sydney bushfires of 2001-02. It was one of several Erickson Air-Cranes which operated in Australia for many fire seasons but have mostly been replaced by newer aircraft.

The royal commission into natural disasters after the 2019-20 Black Summer fire season, which left 33 dead and thousands homeless, recommended the federal government create its own aerial firefighting fleet.

The Albanese government sought advice from state fire services, which control firefighting resources, and opted to continue focusing on renting these aircraft.

Federal Emergency Management Minister Jenny McAllister said the government was listening to expert advice and investing to improve firefighting capabilities.

This included a $48 million commitment for aerial water-bombing aircraft, which would be spent on a large air tanker and lead plane and three helicopters during the next two fire seasons. A review of aerial firefighting capability would be completed this year.

“Scientists tell us that Australians can expect to experience a longer fire season, which is why the Albanese government is investing to better prepare and protect communities, increasing our investment in the fleet, and reviewing our future needs,” McAllister said.

Professor Mark Howden, from the Australian National University Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions, said climate change had extended Australia’s fire season to overlap with the northern hemisphere’s, particularly with an early start to dry conditions and hot temperatures.

“What used to be the non-fire season in south-eastern Australia, there’s actually been an exponential increase in the area burnt during that,” Howden said.

He said climate change’s impact on fire risk could be seen in all the key metrics.

“We’re seeing it in terms of the length of the fire season, we’re seeing it in terms of area burnt, the number of extreme fire-danger days.”

Rising fire danger from global warming was most acute in mid-latitude locations such as Australia, California, South Africa, the Mediterranean and Chile because they shared wetter, cool winters and hot summers, which were good for growing the forests that fires needed to burn.

“Historically, those middle latitudes have always been prone to fires, and that’s just getting worse due to climate change,” Howden said.

LA’s fires are being driven by howling Santa Ana winds, which blow hot and dry inland air east to the coast.

“We’re seeing lower humidity in the atmosphere in general because of climate change and that increases fire danger risk,” Howden said.

“We’re also seeing indications that the Santa Ana winds, which are driving the current fires, could actually have a climate change influence that makes them stronger than they otherwise would be.”

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