Air Tanker Study

[OZBUSDRIVER]

In the midst of a contemplative Easter I came across an interesting study performed by the RAND Corporation in 2012

Air Attack Against Wildfires (http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2012/RAND_MG1234.pdf)

Seeing as we came off a relatively benign season. The fires, thankfully, not in the same league as the devastating fires of 03 and 09, brought out controversial news reports of fire interdiction and fire area management. The fires of this summer 2018 season seemed not to be inferno level but received similar reaction from authorities, mass evacuations, accumulations of resources yet massive property damage listed. Still, the argument of prescribed burns being inadequate surfaces and fuel loads do increase in the bush. This study encompasses the cost of fighting fires and the use of assets. Amazing outcome, considering the entrenched position of local fire experience people who post here. My experience this year, under the flightpath of the large airtanker operating out of Avalon and fighting the fire above Rosedale noted a turnaround time of 180 minutes per attack...no more than three to four drops per day. I now read this report to discover this is a gross misuse of funds for little return except thrilling media clips on the nightly news. Three lakes of more than sufficient size were easily within 20nm of the fire. In black and white..scoopers are more effective and cost effective than similar sized helicopters!....and way more effective than large airtankers of any size where water is available.

When a helicopter only needs 12 feet diameter water source and a scooper needs 4400ft(1320m) of water surface to operate on, yet the scooper still wins out on cost you have to ask why , in south eastern Australia, why we do not see more of these machines operating. The south east of this country has plenty of lakes that can host operations for scoopers.

The money expended each and every year will continue to increase. Isn't it time to look at alternatives that do give value?

[Sunfish]

The key lack is “unused” lakes with no snags and acceptable approaches. If you are going to use Eildon, you are going to have to ban recreational use or layout two exclusion zones, depending on wind, free of snags, which, since the Lake is now at 40%, means that the best water will be off limits. Not sure about Dartmouth, william hovel or Nihlacootie, but it ain’t as simple as it sounds.

The Helos and water bombers here do a great job.

[OZBUSDRIVER]

True, Sunfish. But all dams aren't snag filled. All the department has to do is a small education of the locals using the dams to stay outside the markers when the water bombers are in operation. These things being amphibious could forward base at each individual lake as a visible presence that they are operating off the lake. Buffalo is good as is the Dart. Glenmaggie, Yan Yean...even the Hazelwood cooling pond will work. Not to mention some reaches of the Snowy, albeit brackish but long enough and wide enough...the controlling factor? Permission.

[OZBUSDRIVER]

In each case, scoopers are the central component of the optimal solution. Two factors drive this finding. First, scoopers are considerably less expensive to own and operate than larger helicopters and fixedwing airtankers. Second, when fires are proximate to water sources, scoopers can drop far more water on a fire than a retardant-bearing aircraft can drop retardant.

Doctrine suggests that aerial application of suppressants and retardants will be ineffective without ground support (see, e.g., National Interagency Aviation Council, 2009, p. 85; Plucinski, 2009). Instead, airtankers, scoopers, and helicopters normally work in conjunction with firefighters on the ground. While a retardant drop from an airtanker may create a strip of land that that is resistant to ignition, even a small gap in such a barrier could render the effort worthless if the fire managed to pass over, through, or around the aircraft-generated barrier.
On-the-ground firefighters are therefore necessary to secure the fire line created by aviation assets.

At the same time, there is a widespread belief among fire aviation professionals that air attack can be useful in delaying fire growth, or even suppressing small fires, before ground resources arrive.

[Sunfish]

Ozbusdriver, educating the locals isn’t the problem, it’s educating the hordes of city based holiday makers that infest the lakes in summer. Most of them are total morons when it comes to anything outside their city based experience.

This afternoon the CFA, SES and Ambos are already dealing with a bad two car collision on of course, a “deserted” country dirt road. Tonight we will probably get called out to a bushfire as the campers get drunk around their too large campfires in tinder dry conditions.

I prefer the Helos and Dromaders(?) because they launch in mere minutes and are sometimes on the fire before the CFA tankers. I’ve been at a fire where we got a drop about every ten minutes from a shuttle service. More and smaller drops work for me better than big dumps every hour.

P. S. Retardant is expensive. I forget the actual figure but it may be $5000 for a tanker load.

[Checkboard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upPHSDqj5x0

[cattletruck]

Every year I regularly watch the Canadiar CL215s/415s, Skycranes, Dromaders and even a Kamov Ka32 deal with fires in Greece.
The Canadiars are just awesome pieces of equipment and the skill of the pilots is breathtaking to watch. Having plenty of ocean helps but those mountains in hot-and-hi are quite challenging. They seem to cope ok working around the busy tourist areas.
The Dromaders are the first responders capable of 2 fire retardant drops before having to go back for a refill. They usually work in 2's with 2 aircraft dropping while 2 are refuelling.
The Kamov does water bombing with a bucket, primarily used for mopping up.
The Skycranes are used if assigned to the area, in fact they are often the same aircraft used in Oz.

Sadly last year in 2018, the story that made the media was the one were a fire started in the northern part of the city outskirts and descended rapidly into a gated community entrapping many people and causing a huge loss of life - also at fault were poor building codes. At the same time another bigger fire was already burning on the western side of the city outskirts which was being dealt with by aerial and ground units under the typically worst kinds of conditions. A week later I watched another fire start in a nearby mountain and get extinguished by the Dromaders, a few days later at 2am in the morning I would watch fire trucks whizz by fighting another deliberate fire as I drank my beer in a bar. A week later as I was driving down a mountain range a fire had just broken out, it was fresh and nearby so I noting the wind I chose to press on. The Dromaders and Kamov arrived in minutes and put it out. I should also add I was in the thick of it in 2007 when Russia, Italy and Germany sent over some impressive aerial assistance.

The Canadiars need ocean or big lakes to safely get in and get out, unfortunately we don't have much of that inland. They also tend to keep up a high ready to fly away speed when loading up water.

[tail wheel]

Some years ago a Government report indicated the CAD$37 mill capital cost could not be justified due to very low anticipated utilization and the limited availability of operationally safe, acceptable water sources would result in unnecessarily long sortie times.

It also appears the CL-415 went out of production in 2015? Killed off I suspect by low cost conversions of surplus military and civil aircraft types (C130, Gruman S-2, DC10, B747)?

[Allan L]

Who needs reports and studies? The Pres of the HewSA already decided that water bombers could have saved Notre Dame.

PS this linked story is a severe example, but even 'moderate' drops are not without danger. https://apnews.com/7b72b8c13e454d46ac5489cec4cdbc3c