The Future of Fighting Bushfires

In October, the bushfire royal commission delivered its long-awaited report examining what the country needs to do to prevent another black summer tragedy. Here, Josie Tutty speaks to the Australians leading the revolution in fighting bushfires and argues that we should embrace a smart new mix of drones, sensors and a national firefighting fleet

Following the hottest, driest year on record, the 2019- 20 Australian fire season affected nearly 80 per cent of Australians directly or indirectly and killed more than 1 billion animals, driving some to extinction. No wonder Australians are looking towards this year’s fire season with trepidation. As fire seasons around the globe grow longer and more ferocious, our methods for dealing with them need to improve dramatically over the coming years. Reports, recommendations, and a royal commission make one thing clear: the country’s aerial capabilities will have a large part to play in the future of both preventing and fighting bushfires in Australia.

With fires increasing globally, an Australian-owned fleet is vital 

In July, Emergency Leaders for Climate Action (ELCA) and the Climate Council released the Australian Bushfire Climate Plan, a report filled with 165 recommendations from the National Bushfire and Climate Summit 2020 aimed at improving Australia’s firefighting capabilities. The report argued for an increase in Australian-owned fleets, along with improving early detection and predetermined dispatch to get aircraft where they need to be, faster. 

The bushfire royal commission has already suggested that Australia has become far too reliant on firefighting aircraft borrowed from other countries, and has warned that longer fire seasons globally will make sourcing aircraft an increasing challenge. This was echoed in the ELCA’s report, which noted that given the growing overlap of fire seasons between the northern and southern hemispheres, access to medium, large, and very large water-bombing aircraft is currently limited. The ELCA report recommended that federal funding should develop a self-sufficient Australian medium and large aerial firefighting capability. It also highlighted the need for federal funding to enable more rapid detection and rapid attack strategies, which “should include rotary and fixed-wing aircraft of small, medium and large size, including amphibious water scooping aircraft”. The bushfire royal commission subsequently doubled-down on the idea, calling for a national fleet to be shared between states and territories. 

Craig Lapsley is an emergency management expert who has previously served as the emergency management commissioner for Victoria and as the manager of state operations for Fire & Rescue NSW. He is part of Emergency Leaders for Climate Action and has been closely involved in the development of the ELCA’s report. 

Speaking to Australian Aviation, Lapsley highlighted the need for Australian-owned fleets. “We’re all experiencing more frequent and intense fires, and the seasons are longer,” he says. “California is still in yet another significant fire season, and they’ve had that year after year now. There’s been no break – and that’s both northern and southern California. Across the globe, Bolivia has got fire running at the moment, Chile’s getting ready for their fire season. 

“Some of the aircraft that were operating in Australia last year went to Indonesia and will come back. We do well with the number of them based in Australia, but those that live here 365 days a year are smaller. We do have aircraft in Australia that are owned by Australian companies operating in Australia. However, the big aircraft – the large air tankers, the very large helicopters – have always been more expensive and operate globally.” 

Traditionally, the Australian and the Californian summer season didn’t overlap, so the pressure on aircraft resources wasn’t there. “We’ve seen in the last number of years that the seasons are getting closer, tighter and overlapping,” he adds. “Now, the question is, ‘Why haven’t we got the aircraft like that in Australia?’” 

Lapsley points to the NSW Rural Fire Service as an exception to this rule, after it signed a contract with US-based Coulson Aviation to purchase three firebombing aircraft, including a modified Boeing 737 large air tanker. However, Lapsley believes that the next step – and the future of firefighting in this country – should be to build an aviation industry here in Australia. 

“If we were clever, we would manufacture or modify aircraft in Australia, train people, have simulators, build capabilities, be a leader in the large tank and the large helicopter fleets,” he says. 

“People look at Australia as being a bushfire-prone country – and we are. Other countries expect us to have expertise. So it’s not just about building capability, it’s about building industry and encouraging jobs and expertise that can protect Australia but also be shared globally.” 

Predetermined dispatch and early detection 

So-called “predetermined dispatch” – where aircraft will respond to fires at the same time as firefighters on the ground – has been touted by experts as one of the best ways to fight fires. Currently, Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria are the only states in Australia with some form of it, and the decision is made on a state-by-state basis. Victoria’s shift to predetermined dispatch came as a direct result of the 2009 royal commission. A 2014 monitor report noted that the predetermined dispatch of aircraft “greatly enhanced air response capability”, and that “there was clear evidence of improved command and control arrangements at the State Control Centre (SCC) and at a regional level”. 

‘The aircraft might not necessarily extinguish fires, but what it will do is contain fires’

“As soon as a fire call comes in, the fire trucks have been notified, but so has the aircraft, so it’s there straight away,” explains Lapsley, who oversaw Victoria’s transition to predetermined dispatch. “We worked through every detail to make sure we got it safely operating, and it was very safe. The aim was to keep all small fires small or to keep all fires small, whichever way you want to look at it. The aircraft might not necessarily extinguish fires, but what it will do is contain fires to allow the ground crews to tidy them up. To have the aircraft out early is important.” 

There needs to be more aircraft, ideally of the smaller, quicker variety to make predetermined dispatch a reality across Australia in the future. “If you have a small fire, you don’t need the biggest aircraft; you need the most effective.” Early detection is an even more effective remedy than predetermined dispatch, providing crews with the chance to catch fires before they even start. This was outlined in the ELCA report, which stated that since fires are becoming increasingly difficult to control once they start, the focus should shift from containing fires to rapidly extinguishing them while they’re still small. 

Alongside immediately deploying aerial and ground firefighting crews on days of very high fire danger and above, the report also recommended using an automated network of sensors to aid in detection. 

“One of the things we’ve got to be better at if we’re going to have more frequent fires is a better detection system,” says Lapsley. “Currently, we’ve got people ringing up 000, people up towers, but there are technologies available now that should be invested in and utilised to give the earliest detection. Then the aircraft can be there straight away along with the ground crews, to keep small fires small, and all fires small.”

‘We know we’ve got the answers. We need the political will to implement them’

A vision of the future in the Latrobe Valley 

Some of this technology is already being implemented in Australia, with the Latrobe Valley Information Network (LVIN) being considered one of the best examples. The Latrobe Valley has faced many severe catastrophes, including Black Saturday and the Hazelwood Mine Fire, which burned in the Hazelwood coal mine for 45 days from February to March 2014. In response, Australian engineering company Attentis built a network of 45 sensors that combine bushfire ignition detection, river and stream level monitoring, air quality tracking and 24-hour microclimate weather conditions to provide early notification of fires, floods and air quality issues. As a result, the area’s 75,000 residents now have free access to real-time conditions, including rainfall, air composition, and notifications from local agencies and emergency services. 

Lance King, Latrobe City’s co-ordinator of emergency management, worked closely with Attentis on the implementation of the sensors. 

“It was like a light bulb moment for me when I saw what was on offer for the community within Latrobe City,” King says when asked about the project. “I saw this as a tool for building real community resilience, by giving the community real-time information on the surroundings that I live in, from air quality to smoke and fire detection.

There’s a whole range of things that this tool can do. I see it as a raft of tools that can protect our communities from a whole list of emergencies.” 

The sensors are useful not only before and during a disaster but can protect communities from the ongoing adverse health effects of living in an area ravaged by fire-related emergencies. He points to the Hazelwood Mine Fire, the effects of which “are still going on today”. 

“They’re in Hazelwood mine at the moment pulling it down, and I’m getting alerts at the moment when they’re blowing up a dredge,” King says. “Only a few weeks ago, we were looking at the smoke that went across the valley as they were blowing up the chimneys.” 

Looking towards the future of fighting bushfires, King believes that sensors such as the LVIN are an essential tool in both prevention and fighting fires as they grow. 

“It’s just another tool to give those firefighters on the ground and in the air real-time information of what’s going on around them,” he says. 

“The firefighters can use it on the ground to see the wind direction, the relative humidity and wind strength. The units can pick up and alert aircraft while they’re on the ground, or the aircraft controllers, and then they can take off using rapid response and head to where the alert has come from. They can make a real difference in the response times of both ground crews and aircraft.”

For systems like the LVIN to become commonplace in communities across Australia, the political will to implement them needs to be there, says King. 

“It’s Australian technology designed, developed, and built in Australia by Australians. It’s been around for 10 years, but it’s about getting the political masters to sit up and take notice of a tool that I see as a silver bullet for them going forward. We know we’ve got the answers. We need the political will to implement them,” he says. 

Drone technology 

King believes that in the future, sensors like the LVIN will work in tandem with drones to fight fires before they’ve even started. “We’re looking at how these units can alert drones, and the drone can take off remotely, travel to the unit, pick up the fire and put it out. That’s futuristic, but it’s not beyond the realms of what can happen today,” he says. 

One project that’s looking to use drones to provide a more effective early warning and fire prevention system comes from the UNSW Digital Grid Futures Institute, led by institute director Joe Dong. Speaking to Australian Aviation, Dong explains that drones could give investigators much more detailed information from a remote distance, often through signals such as chemicals building up under the vegetation. 

“Most drone-based solutions in this field have one or two functions,” says Dong. “The AI in this proposed solution would incorporate multifunctions: heat detection using infrared and laser, 3D vegetation imagery, air quality and fume detection based on local eucalypt and other Australian-specific flora.” 

One reason this is beneficial over other detection methods, he explains, is that drones can fly very close to the affected area. 

“Satellites will provide the measurement, mostly through imaging, but if we fly drones, we can also monitor some of the chemicals of the gas. We would also like to incorporate the ability to spot extinguish with water, potentially preventing spot fires from growing into a larger bushfire,” Dong adds.

Compared with sending in ground crews to different areas, the drones can gain more unrestricted access to different locations. This will not only improve the effectiveness of detection but also reduce the cost. 

However, Dong makes it clear that his team is primarily designing the drone as a technology designed for surveying the bush before a fire, “avoiding concerns of downed drones posing a risk to firefighters during a fire”. 

As with any bushfire solution, the key is diversity. 

“Ideally, we would combine drones with conventional technologies based on meteorology, data and other information,” says Dong. “There are already very robust warning systems that can be enhanced by future technologies using drones and fibre-sensor networks. 

“We already have people deploying 5G and other very new telecommunication technologies, which will enable even faster transmission of the signals measured by sensors. I believe the future is combining these sensors and distributing them based on the needs of the high-risk areas compared to the low-risk areas.” 

Lapsley agrees that diversity is the key to the future of fighting bushfires here in Australia. There’s not one single solution,” he argues. “It’s the same with aircraft, you’ve got little helicopters, big helicopters, little fixed-wings, big fixed-wings: they’re all important to have in the fleet. If you only had one and not the others, you haven’t got the mix required to do the job. The little aircraft are good to come in early, the larger ones come in right behind them, right through to ‘We need the very big aircraft’.”

‘Diversity is a very important aspect of a good fleet for Australia’

Of those big aircraft, a much larger fuel capacity provides a considerable benefit when fighting fires across state lines. 

“One of the things with the 737 out of Sydney, last year we flew on one tank of fuel to Perth, dropped its retardant there, and then returned to Sydney to operate the next day. That’s the first time we’ve had a machine in Australia that can fly across Australia,” he adds. 

“So not only is the 737 big on water or retardant, but it’s also capable of flying across the nation, which is important if you’re going to have a national fleet. The 737 also can carry people, so you can cart people with it, too. The capabilities are becoming more diverse than ever, and that’s important. 

“Diversity is a very important aspect of a good fleet for Australia.”