Tasmanian firefighting trucks pulled due to serious technical flaws

Firefighting tankers have been pulled from service just before Tasmania’s peak bushfire season due to technical flaws which make them prone to rollovers.

Seventy-five firefighting tankers have been pulled from service just before Tasmania’s peak bushfire season. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

Firefighting tankers have been pulled from service just before Tasmania’s peak bushfire season due to technical flaws which make them prone to rollovers.

On Tuesday the Tasmanian Fire Service announced it had pulled a “small number” of Light Vehicles offline, but insisted it would not impact firefighting capability.

United Firefighters Union industrial organiser Stephen McCallum said it was ludicrous to suggest this reduction would have no impact on their firefighting capacity.

He said these smaller 4WD light tankers were specially designed for vegetation firefighting, which often involved narrow trails in rough, uphill terrain.

United Firefighters Union Australia, Branch President Mark Dobson, Industrial Organiser Stephen McCallum and Branch Secretary and National President Leigh Hills at Hobart. Picture: Chris Kidd

Instead, Mr McCallum said many crews would need to rely on their remaining vehicles which were less suited to handle bushfire conditions.

“To say there won’t be an impact on bushfire fighting capability when you’re taking 75 vehicles out of service is a complete fallacy,” Mr McCallum said.

“The reality is these vehicles won’t be repaired in time for this fire season, and inaction from TFS has put our community at risk again.”

TFS Chief Officer Dermot Barry said the number of affected vehicles was 22, not 75.

Mr Barry said they had “recently” been made aware of a technical matter, which was going to be reviewed by an external engineering company.

He said a finalised report was expected by mid-November.

“It is expected that these issues will be resolved prior to the upcoming fire season,” Mr Barry said.

Mr McCallum said the vehicles had a weight imbalance which made them susceptible to rollovers.

He said the union had asked the TFS to measure the weight distribution over each axle, but had been met with “delays and denial” for several months.

Mr McCallum said firefighters took it upon themselves to measure the weight distribution flaws in the vehicles, formally submitting their findings to TFS in June this year.

Firefighting tankers have been pulled from service just before Tasmania’s peak bushfire season. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

Mr McCallum said there had been a number of rollovers in recent years, including one particularly serious light truck rollover in January 2019 which hospitalised two New Norfolk volunteers.

One of the volunteers, James Lusted, fractured his vertebrae after his tanker rolled six times down a steep embankment in Geeveston.

Labor MP Michelle O’Byrne said it was the state government who bore the responsibility for allowing this problem to continue unchecked.

Michelle O'Byrne. Picture: Kenji Sato

“The department and the minister have known that vehicles that our firefighters have been operating in have been unsafe,” Ms O’Byrne said.

“This will impact not only on our career firefighters but also our volunteer firefighters, and our most important obligation is to make sure they are safe, and they are clearly not safe.”

She said the response to the concerns was “bizarre in the extreme”, with firefighters told they should remove spare tires and reduce the water in tanks to fix the weight problems.

Emergency Management Minister Felix Ellis said processes in Engineering Services will be reviewed to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

“I agree with Ms O’Byrne that this situation isn’t good enough. That’s why there is an engineering review underway to fix this issue,” Mr Ellis said.

“But Labor also need to stop misleading our firies. These vehicles are out of service and I have been advised there is no material impact on capability for the coming fire season.”