Fire Warnings

foxpuppet said:
The last line says it all really....


Pray for rain, pray harder for leadership.

Without getting into politics as has been prescribed for this thread. I think they need to look at a full scale water bombing fleet that can hit these fires right when they start. It needs to be here at all times ready to go when needed. Not leasing the gear from overseas and having to wait until it arrives. A full compliment of sky cranes and VLAT bombers.


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www.smh.com.au

'Buying time': the pilot behind world's first Boeing 737 water bomber

Hikers in Kosciuszko National Park over the past week would have been treated to an unusual aerial display if they happened to be any where near Possum Point.
www.smh.com.au www.smh.com.au
 
foxpuppet said:
Without getting into politics as has been prescribed for this thread. I think they need to look at a full scale water bombing fleet that can hit these fires right when they start. It needs to be here at all times ready to go when needed. Not leasing the gear from overseas and having to wait until it arrives. A full compliment of sky cranes and VLAT bombers.
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there is at least 1 large water bomber stationed at Richmond RAAF base most of the time, but with all the money that the Australian government wastes on new shiny things we don't need it would make more sense to re-divert some of that cash towards permanent fire fighting assets.
even a fraction of the military budget would make a huge impact..at present its like bringing a single cartridge pump action super soaker to a fire storm!
358558
 
fatboyonabike said:
do they have some sort of fire barrier or shielding over them?
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Nope, just a standard pump. Honda because they’re reliable...

Obviously there is common sense (and training ) applied to refuelling then, but on a fire line you’re not opening the tank. You refuel when you fill up with water and the petrol will last long enough to empty your water.
 
Haakon said:
www.smh.com.au

'Buying time': the pilot behind world's first Boeing 737 water bomber

Hikers in Kosciuszko National Park over the past week would have been treated to an unusual aerial display if they happened to be any where near Possum Point.
www.smh.com.au www.smh.com.au
Click to expand...

Yep those are the ones. Currently leased from Canada. I think we want at least 6 - 10.

They station at Richmond airbase so it makes sense to have a fleet of them. Even Hercules if capable or a couple of the C17 converted to water bomber usage.

I can see a fire breaking out somewhere remote and they just fly in convoy and blanket it before it can spread. Probably a pipe dream I know but they have to do more than they are now to beef up our firefighting arsenal. Would mean less work for the ground crews etc etc.


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foxpuppet said:
Yep those are the ones. Currently leased from Canada. I think we want at least 6 - 10.

They station at Richmond airbase so it makes sense to have a fleet of them. Even Hercules if capable or a couple of the C17 converted to water bomber usage.
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KC30 MRTT is what you want
I'm pretty sure that Coulson Aviation already have CJ 130 Herc's as water bombers, a CJ27 Spartan would be also a good choice.
 
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why can't our current fleet of Military CJ130 Herc's be converted to fire bombers during the fire season and have the military chip in with fighting these fires, instead of playing uckers and table tennis during summer because its too hot to go outside!
good training for both pilots and ground crews, If you can bomb water at low altitude in extreme conditions, you shouldn't have any trouble bombing bad dudes in far away lands
 
Seems its made it to the Wollamai National Park. Bye pines... You only survived there since the last ice age.

Fuck humans.
 
Haakon said:
Seems its made it to the Wollamai National Park. Bye pines... You only survived there since the last ice age.

Fuck humans.
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3 out of 4 known pine locations were already burnt last week, not sure what has happened since... the pine will live on, my parents have one in their backyard. but yeah its pretty shit...
 
Spike-X said:
Yes he is.

Fucked if I know where he gets it from.
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How do you think I feel when I see Felix ride? Prefer not to think about it.

On topic, watching people post vids of themselves trying to defend their houses in Malacoota with garden hoses in a firestorm of embers. WTF are people still doing there?
As someone more used to the threat of bushfire than most, I probably know the danger and futility more, but still can’t believe what I’m seeing.
 
fatboyonabike said:
why can't our current fleet of Military CJ130 Herc's be converted to fire bombers during the fire season and have the military chip in with fighting these fires, instead of playing uckers and table tennis during summer because its too hot to go outside!
good training for both pilots and ground crews, If you can bomb water at low altitude in extreme conditions, you shouldn't have any trouble bombing bad dudes in far away lands
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apparently there is a kit for this, i think the yanks use theirs, aus gov just have to buy these bladder insert things, it’s a bit like s fork upgrade..pay see germans, watch youtube , install yourself
 
Haakon said:
Nope, just a standard pump. Honda because they’re reliable...

Obviously there is common sense (and training ) applied to refuelling then, but on a fire line you’re not opening the tank. You refuel when you fill up with water and the petrol will last long enough to empty your water.
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one pump would be a single point of failure in a fire, not to mention melting plastic from radiant heat on components and the fact that the pump will fail with poor air intake. then you need some kind of bunker or place to retreat to with no visibility, hot ground, falling trees, post fire, no power, no phone coverage, no supplies - the days when you can squirt a hose at a fire are over, its now mega fire. think I know what I'd be doing.
 
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moorey said:
How do you think I feel when I see Felix ride? Prefer not to think about it.

On topic, watching people post vids of themselves trying to defend their houses in Malacoota with garden hoses in a firestorm of embers. WTF are people still doing there?
As someone more used to the threat of bushfire than most, I probably know the danger and futility more, but still can’t believe what I’m seeing.
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somewhere around 30% of houses arent insured i think - thats what they are doing there. we hear about the dozen or so who perish, but is that out of 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 who stayed and survived? thats better odds that riding a motorbike and avoiding death......

driving a car down any tree lined road in fire conditions is also terribly dangerous. life is risky
 
pharmaboy said:
somewhere around 30% of houses arent insured i think - thats what they are doing there. we hear about the dozen or so who perish, but is that out of 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 who stayed and survived? thats better odds that riding a motorbike and avoiding death......

driving a car down any tree lined road in fire conditions is also terribly dangerous. life is risky
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Strong disagree. That’s some crazy false equivalency right there.
 
fatboyonabike said:
why can't our current fleet of Military CJ130 Herc's be converted to fire bombers during the fire season and have the military chip in with fighting these fires, instead of playing uckers and table tennis during summer because its too hot to go outside!
good training for both pilots and ground crews, If you can bomb water at low altitude in extreme conditions, you shouldn't have any trouble bombing bad dudes in far away lands
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I think there's a few reasons, although I also feel that this season might be a 'ground zero' moment and we are (finally) going to see some changes to how the country deals with fires moving forward. None of the reasons are insurmountable, but cost, apathy and direction/focus all build up to where we are now;
  • Cost of the kit: Who's going to pay for it? Defence will say their budget is all spent, the government has said the States should bear most of the cost
  • Cost of the planes: Extra flight hours means that the platforms will require more maintenance and reach their end-of-life quicker, this means there will be a likely decrease in readiness for RAAF to respond to other incidents and they'll need more $$ to perform maintenance more often. (Readiness levels are set by government policy so can be changed easily enough)
  • Readiness cycle and deployability: the ADF's first role is to provide readiness at a level set by government so every flight hour that is taken for training, equipping and fighting fires is an hour less of readiness preparation and training for the 'core' job.
To make it easier for families (school year, work stand down etc) the ADF uses the end of year (fire season) for its posting cycle. This means that personnel are relocating around the country and so less available for taskings. It's also the main leave period as they use the rest of the year for training. Again both of these can be altered, but would likely have an impact on combat readiness (short term) and retention (longer term).
The big one here is asset management. We don't have a very big lift capacity as it is, and some of it is required to be on short-notice readiness. If we convert the fleet to water-bombers, but then sudden;y decide that we need to go to Iran (for example...) the planes are going to be pulled from fire-fighting duties anyway to support the military operations.
  • Usefulness: Allegedly, because I'm certainly not an expert, the modifications aren't actually that good in Australian conditions due to dispersal method. It's fine for Northern Hemisphere fires, but much less effective against the fuel type we have.
  • Logistics: A lot of the assets aren't in the most useful place for fire response. Moving them, and their support crews, plus finding runway and hanger space all costs $$, which once again will cause huge fights over who foots the bill.

My .2c? The cost of fitting out the RAAF fleet would be better spent building a dedicated national fleet of fire aircraft (I think this was an ALP election promise?), with the RAAF (and wider ADF) having some capacity to provide support to that force when required. The benefit there is also that we can loan/lease it out to other countries when the require assistance.
The ADF/Federal Govt need to also develop better plans for supporting fires etc across Australia, which includes the government calling on identified force elemnets to respond much quicker and much more efficiently than they have been so far
 
mtb101 said:
one pump would be a single point of failure in a fire, not to mention melting plastic from radiant heat on components and the fact that the pump will fail with poor air intake. then you need some kind of bunker or place to retreat to with no visibility, hot ground, falling trees, post fire, no power, no phone coverage, no supplies - the days when you can squirt a hose at a fire are over, its now mega fire. think I know what I'd be doing.
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If you’re in a position where your pump is failing because of heat or no air, you’ve already got much bigger problems...

These pumps are on the 70series cab chassis mobile units. They’re not tankers dealing with big fires, they’re strike teams running around dealing with spot fires, managing controlled fires and doing prescribed burns etc.

When I was doing this way back when there were experiments with diesel pumps, but they were not as reliable and could be hard to start.
 
Spike-X said:
That's why they tell you to get out before the tree-lined roads become too dangerous to drive down.
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because thats how people died on ash wednesday. then we had black saturday that said no, abandon your house early.

i dont think the assumption that someone is an idiot just because they stay is correct - the person with the most amount of information is often best informed - i have a friend who just went through that before christmas - told to leave from someone who didnt know what fire fighting equipment they had, what water storage, and had never been to the property, let alone experienced a fire at the property - didnt actually ask any questions at all, just blanket advice - strange stuff
 
pharmaboy said:
because thats how people died on ash wednesday. then we had black saturday that said no, abandon your house early.

i dont think the assumption that someone is an idiot just because they stay is correct - the person with the most amount of information is often best informed - i have a friend who just went through that before christmas - told to leave from someone who didnt know what fire fighting equipment they had, what water storage, and had never been to the property, let alone experienced a fire at the property - didnt actually ask any questions at all, just blanket advice - strange stuff
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Blanket advice is what’s needed when you have neither the time nor resources to assess everyone. Every person that’s stays, regardless of how well prepared, is a potential liability for the fire services who might have to come to your rescue.
 
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