No they don't have either down here. It's always struck me as strange that some arrangement couldn't be made between, say Quebec and Victoria to place some of the CL's down here in our summer and return them to Quebec in our winter, such as they do with the Erikson Sky Cranes.
Certainly our water retrieval points are are far less numerous, but hey anything helps on a day like Saturday 7/2/09.
The CFA did some work experimenting with a Herc out of Mangalore some years ago, not sure why nothing came of it as again any ability to deliver retardant to the fire front helps and as the death toll is now 108 ( a at 0730 0n 9/2/09) I'm sure that with more aerial assets this may have been a lot less.
Haven't heard whether any of the deaths have been crew or families but as a previous poster said , with so many residing in rural areas its possible that there will be some involved.
Wherever you are in Australia you nearly all face the problem of bushfires, just not as ferocious as these ones were.
Our prayers go out to all involved, and perhaps those not directly involved can assist with donations of clothing, food, toiletries, anything at all as some have absolutely nothing left. Monetary donations can be made to the Red Cross.