We had another bushfire in my suburb today, luckily the wind was blowing it away from my place. The B 214 chopper and the spotter were on the scene pretty quickly, and worked like cut snakes as the fire was advancing rapidly on a line of houses that were threatened last month too.
But what puzzled me is the complete reluctance to use salt water to fight the fires - the ocean was 100 metres away, and a huge lake 1 km away, but they tracked up to 5km to a fresh water supply in an industrial area, greatly increasing the time between drops.
Obviously, salt water is going to stay in the soil for a while and kill the vegetation, but wouldn't that be preferable to losing your house?