‘We cannot rely on other countries’: Will Australia form a sovereign aerial firefighting fleet?

The Australian Black Summer is unmatched compared to many infamous bushfires around the world, including the Amazon rainforest or Californian wildfires. Despite their great impact, the bushfires in Australia burned more than 46 million acres in total between September 2019 and March 2020. A Center for Disaster Philanthropy report noted the amount burned was roughly the size of Syria. “At least 80 per cent of the Blue Mountains World Heritage area in NSW and 53 per cent of the Gondwana world heritage rainforests in Queensland were burned,” said the report. Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed in February 2020 in Parliament that 33 people had died as a result, with nine of them being firefighters. Bushfires in Australia weren’t unheard of, as the hot and dry climate inevitably leads to natural disasters, but the most recent ones proved to be one of the worst in the nation’s history.

The royal commission was a huge stepping stone in determining Australia’s current grasp on handling bushfires. However, noted often was Australia’s desperate need for a better aerial firefighting arrangement – but the government continues to send mixed messages on what will happen next. Currently, states and territories are in charge of their own fleets, but Australia as a whole has a National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC,) which owns more than 140 aircraft ready to disperse to states during peak seasons. The royal commission noted there were more LATs and VLATs needed to support the larger bushfires. This is because 90 per cent of aircraft contracted for 2020-21 normally reside in Australia, however, 10 per cent are sourced from overseas, which usually are the LATs and VLATs.

One of Australia’s principal concerns when it comes to bushfires resembling the previous one, is that overseas contracting can sometimes take up to months for delivery, ultimately wasting crucial costs. Currently, the only LAT resides in NSW, but the others Australia contracts are from North America. Prior to the Black Summer, the ABC revealed that the government rejected calls for an expanded LAT and VLAT fleet, arguing the Home Affairs budget was stretched too thin. Eventually, when the season commenced and funding for the crisis began rolling out, problems emerged with outsourcing the larger tankers. When one was contracted – a DC-10 air tanker – it was located in Alabama in the US, however its departure was delayed due to weather issues, ultimately leading to Australia’s lose grip on handling the crisis. This prime example showed the government the broader issue at stake, which led to astronomical funding initiatives towards bushfire prevention and recovery.

July last year, the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action (ELCA) organisation held a virtual bushfire and climate change summit, formulating 165 recommendations to the government to heighten its response to the worsening crisis. ELCA is a cohort of former senior Australian fire and emergency service leaders, and the recommendations brought in hundreds of participants from across the country and world to share experiences and endorsements. One of the groups key recommendations was for the government to “add a self-sufficient Australian medium and large aerial firefighting capability to fire services”.

Lee Johnson, former commissioner of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services and an ECLA member, told Australian Aviation that “while some progress has been made”, there are still large issues to consider. “We cannot rely on other countries sharing these critical resources with us when we need them, when they themselves are facing longer and more intense fire seasons themselves,” Johnson said. “A key recommendation from the royal commission on this issue was 8.1, which the government ‘noted’, and used early media interviews to suggest this responsibility lay with states and territories.” Johnson indicated the government has suggested additional funding will go towards the NAFC obtaining one more large air tanker, but this is hard to identify in the blueprint of funding.

Johnson highlighted the “root cause” of climate change was driving the bushfires, and that Australia is not doing enough. “The Australian government continues to fail to act on climate change, the root cause of worsening bushfire seasons, and key gaps in its bushfire preparedness measures, include adequate firefighting capabilities, mental health support to emergency responders and affected communities, and a comprehensive plan to help our communities build resilience in the face of climate change,” he said.

Despite these recommendations, the government did not formally respond to the Bushfire and Climate plan submitted in 2020, which provided evidence from Greg Mullens AO, AFSM, former commissioners, and NSW Fire and Rescue, according to Johnson. This comes at a crucial time, as Australia was also ranked last for climate change action out of 200 countries in a report assessing global sustainable progress goals, released recently.

In 2018-19, the Commonwealth government’s annual contribution to the NAFC was $14.81 million, and in December 2018, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced an additional one-off $11 million. After a few more slots of funding over the two years rolled out, following the royal commission and the ELCA recommendations, the government announced a “considerable investment in the recovery process of the Black Summer Bushfires and Australia’s disaster preparedness and risk reduction needs”, according to a spokesperson from the Department of Home Affairs, who spoke to Australian Aviation. This investment included almost $3 billion for the coming years directed to the National Partnership Agreement on Disaster Risk Reduction to reduce disaster risk, critical research, alert systems, the Public Safety Mobile Broadband proof of concept trial, the recovery, and aerial firefighting.

However, despite these large investments, the government and political leaders continue to update Australia with mixed messages of aerial firefighting displayed through its responses to the media and to the royal commission. Although $31 million of that sum will provide additional funding to the NAFC, it is unclear whether that will go to LATs and VLATs.
Late last year, then emergency management minister David Littleproud indicated the government would “happily” support a sovereign fleet, but would rely on the professionals to lead the way. “We’ll support anything that the fire commissioners come back with in terms of their determination about what that fleet of aircraft needs to be. They are the professionals,” he said. However, The Sydney Morning Herald noted the government responded to the royal commission stating they did not have plans for a sovereign fleet. “The Commonwealth has no desire to replicate or replace these capabilities, including in aerial firefighting,” the response said. “The Commonwealth … is comfortable with the present arrangements of the states and territories involving the National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC).”

Yet, contrarily, in Chapter 6 of the ‘Lessons to be learned in relation to the Australian Bushfire season 2019-2020’ from the Parliament of Australia, responded to the ELCA’s comments with potential for a fleet. The ELCA said, “Australia has insufficient aerial firefighting resources, there has been insufficient research into the effectiveness and efficiency of various aerial platforms, that there is a concerning growth in reliance on large and very large aircraft, and that there is an identified gap in the current mix of aerial firefighting resources.”

The committee therefore responded to the calls pledging to potentially establish a permanent, Australia-based fleet resourced less internationally, and more domestically. The response also noted there would need to be increased “research and analysis”, defining the right ratio of small and medium aircraft, and the need for LATs and VLATs onshore. However, with these responses only months apart from each other – yet polar opposites – it leaves unresolved gaps in what the government will be actioning.

Wildland fire authorities in Australia late last year announced the addition of five LATs, however, all would be under contract, with only one – the B737 – owned by the NSW government. Despite this being an achievement to gain more control, it still falls short of national ownership requested in the royal commission and the ELCA recommendations. This again notions Australia is not tackling the broader issue; while it is promising to increase LAT and VLAT fleets, lacking ownership is where the issue lies.

Following the mixed messages, private companies are required to step up. Founded in 1968, Aerotech is one of Australia’s leading companies providing aerial firefighting support from crop spraying, fire management, oil spill management and aircraft maintenance – and now, it has just bought its own two LATs, Black Hawk UH-60s. Earlier this month, Australian Aviation reported on the new aircraft purchased, an ex-US military jet that can undertake firefighting missions, dropping more than 4,000 litres of water per load. “Our helicopters will remain in Australia all year round,” said Sam McCabe, managing director and pilot at Aerotech. “This responds to a key finding of the recent bushfire royal commission that state and federal governments should develop an Australian sovereign aerial fleet comprising ‘Large Type 1 Helicopters’ such as the Black Hawk.”

McCabe said that South Australia – where the company is based – organises aerial firefighting sufficiently, but the lack of LATs and VLATs is concerning, and that is why the company took it into its own hands. “We [Australia] are very reliant on northern hemisphere operators, we are very reliant on bringing aircraft in from overseas,” he said. “But until we can probably get some support from the government to build an Australian based fleet, I think that will be the case for the foreseeable future.”

MCabe noted these aircraft, when finalised, will be the first Australian registered and piloted. Comparatively, outsourced jets are owned and licensed by the borrowing countries, therefore limiting use by contracts as short as 12 weeks and increasing costs exponentially. Therefore, this is a major key step in obtaining ownership and control over Australia’s firefighting capabilities, but being led by privately owned companies nonetheless poses its limits compared to the federal government.

Despite these steps forward from private companies, Johnson from the ELCA said the Australian government has “used unclear language” when it comes to what they plan on actioning in the coming years. This includes the government ‘noting’ to do certain things, but is “less vocal and clear” on establishing a sovereign firefighting fleet among other recommendations. The proposed funding precisely depicts Australia’s position in handling future bushfire seasons, however until the next, it will be unclear if the government has actioned the continuous calls for a sovereign aerial firefighting fleet.