New tool in the box for Victorian bushfire season

For the first time this bushfire season, Victoria’s authorities will have the capability to water bomb blazes from the air after dark.

A Kestrel Aviation Bell 412 fights a controlled blaze.

For the first time this bushfire season, Victoria’s emergency management authorities will have the capability to water bomb blazes from the air after dark.

It’s considered the most significant advance in firefighting capabilities in several decades, and follows months of intensive training and trials to secure Civil Aviation Safety Authority approval.

Emergency Management Victoria operations officer Wayne Rigg, who heads up the aerial firefighting program, says they cannot afford to get it wrong.

He cites the US experience where night firebombing was introduced in the 1980s, only to end in disaster when two helicopters collided, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other.

“That ended the program for another 20 years,” Rigg says. “Being the first in Australia everyone’s looking to us about making sure we get it right, so we’re going to be very cautious about how we do this.”

Strict safety parameters have been put in place around this year’s operations including a requirement the night helicopter crew has been involved in daytime firebombing.

“That’s so they understand in the daytime before they flick over to the night vision goggles, where the hazards are, where the water supplies are, where the major trees are, the wires, the towers, the houses so that they have a very clear risk assessment,” says Rigg. “What that means is, if a fire starts after dark and our pilots have not been on that fire during the day time, we won’t be firebombing it because to go out into an environment which you haven’t flown before at low level on goggles is just asking for trouble.”

One of the two companies contracted to carry out the night aerial firebombing, Kestrel Aviation, is all too aware of how much is riding on this season’s activities.

Managing director Ray Cronin says it’s a “crawl, walk, run” process. “We don’t want there to be a public perception that we’re going to put any fire out at night, or that we have the blanket capability to do it. It will probably be a few years before it really gets to that point. This year is about developing that capability.”

Kestrel Aviation will use a Bell 412 helicopter, specially fitted out for the night firebombing operation and with the capacity to carry 1500 litres of water or foam.

“The Bell 412 is a very sophisticated platform, it has a lot of instrument capability outside the visual capability so if we inadvertently go into cloud or very dense smoke we can revert to instruments and fly the aircraft away,” says Cronin. “The other contracted company Coulsons, are using an S61 which has a capacity of around 3000 litres.”

Rigg is confident the helicopters will prove a valuable asset to Victoria’s firefighting program, which he considers the best in the world. “We’re talking two aircraft, one at Ballarat and one at Mangalore, so it’s a finite resource, it’s another tool in the box and it will have limited capability.”