Surely now there will be the political will at last to get moving on a
permanent fixed-wing fleet of high capacity fire-fighting aircraft.
Ideally then on critical days as Saturday was, you would have 2 or 3 airborne aircraft on patrol early over designated trouble zones then able to stamp out any fire quickly before it gets out of control.
The choppers are great (you blokes did such a great damn job) as they can draw water from anywhere but watching the footage, some of the water dispersal in the gusty conditions looked a bit like peeing in the wind. Larger fixed wing aircraft would obviously dump far greater quantities of water/retardant but will need more of a dedicated government strategy to implement.
The CL-415 is great in Canada where water-landings on calm lakes are relatively simple. In Australia we basically only have the ocean and on windy days like Saturday this makes it very difficult for seaplanes to operate (not to mention the distance of the ocean from many of the fires).
Perhaps the ideal situation is to have a series of 2 or 3 existing airports (Mangalore, Sale, Horsham) set up with permanent large water-storage facilities from which large capacity fixed wing aircraft (CL-415's, converted ex-RAAF C130H's?) can simply land, refill and head out again. Evergreen in the US even have a 747 water bomber up and running. With a bit of luck you could be there so early as to dump tons of water on the arsonists who seem to have started these fires.
YouTube - Boeing 747 the water bomber
Col Paye's idea for scooping water was terrific and should be taken further. However it seems what is really needed is a dedicated fleet of Australian-based LARGE CAPACITY fixed wing aircraft. Whilst I would have thought over 100 lives lost would be justification enough, commercially the 3 or 4 airframes could not only be utilized Australia-wide, they could be sent to Europe or North America during their summers in order to offset some/all of the costs associated.
This tragedy can't be allowed to happen again. People will always want to live in the bush and the bush will always burn (particularly with droughts and global warming). The only way to minimise the damage is to have a rapid-response fleet of high capacity fixed-wing aircraft able to move quickly to either stamp out the fires before they get too big or effectively create a sodden barricade along boundaries of threatened communities to protect them from approaching infernos.
In the meantime, thank-you so much to those CFA and chopper crews. Must have been a horrible weekend for you.