Australia’s fire season

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is also conducting a safety study into aerial firefighting in Australia. One of the reasons behind this review is that the Australian government’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has projected an increase in land use that would endanger more people from wildfires in the future.

On top of the trends in population expansion, climate change and unpredictable weather patterns, fears of a repeat of Black Summer were at the forefront of many people’s minds in the build-up to and the height of this summer, four years on. In fact, in Queensland alone, more homes had burned in the state by November than they did during the entire Black Summer.

Concern was also being expressed by experts. Speaking to AirMed&Rescue at the start of November, Prof David Bowman – Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science at the University of Tasmania – said: “Because of the El Niño, the above-average temperatures and lack of effective rainfall, plus grass growth from the triple La Niña, we are deeply worried.”

The Australian landscape

A huge country, sixth largest by area, Australia is also the driest inhabited continent. Being large, flat and dry, Australia is more prone to small conflagrations developing and then, with a breeze, they can spread rapidly across wide areas of bushland.

We’ve just come off a long period of wet conditions over the last three-odd years that saw a lot of grass growth in particular in the western parts of Queensland

As it relates to wildfires, bushfires are synonymous and often the preferred term. The weather in Australia and the type of vegetation that grows natively means that the bush (which covers vast portions of the landmass) can be a lush verdant countryside, or a dry tinderbox waiting for a spark. Heavy rains lead to rapid grass growth, but the hot dry periods that follow can result in the same explosion of greenery becoming instant and easy fuel for wildfires to consume.

The La Niña event that has been in progress for a few years bringing more wet weather ended and the El Niño event arriving has consequences for wildfires. Hollier added some more context to Prof Bowman’s warning: “We’ve just come off a long period of wet conditions over the last three-odd years that saw a lot of grass growth in particular in the western parts of Queensland.” Extra grass equals extra fuel and, over an area of around 185.3 million hectares, that is a lot of ground to burn.

Stephen Hunter, Acting Deputy Chief Fire Officer for Northern Territory (NT) Fire and Rescue Service (FRS), said: “The largest factor on fire severity has been the widespread growth of Buffel grass across central Australia. This has had a significant impact on wildfires.” He continued: “The recent rains have impacted the season and are likely to impact the severity of the following season. The recent regrowth, and the positive feedback loop that fire has on Buffel regrowth, may carry higher than expected fuel loads into next season.”

Subject to an El Niño weather event that brings with it cyclones, droughts and heatwaves, terrible wildfires are an explicit consequence of this confluence of events in Australia. And when the winds are stronger, the droughts longer and the temperatures higher, as they have been this season, the wildfires will be worse.

Queensland and New South Wales were already affected in October 2023, and by the end of January 2024, Western Australia was experiencing raging bushfires that were uncontrolled and affecting the lives and homes of the populace.

Preparation

Preparation for this fire season has been particularly hampered by hot and dry weather preceding the summer. Hollier stated that it was difficult to achieve the levels of

There were other activities that were put in place to try and mitigate against fire happening in the landscape, whether it was a series of education awareness campaigns or contacting a community at risk to ask if they were aware of the circumstances in their area and if they had made their preparations

prescribed burning needed to reduce the available fuel for potential wildfires: “Without rain to safely go and do hazard reduction burning to reduce the fuel, the windows of opportunity where the weather conditions are correct or favorable – where you have low temperatures, low humidity and favorable winds – those small windows of opportunity did not allow a lot of hazard reduction burning to be undertaken.”

He added: “The winds in particular have been significantly strong. If you saw any of the media reports, you will have heard a number of us talking about the fact that we were suffering quite a lot, particularly from August on, which had a lot stronger winds than we’ve had in some previous years. We’re having quite strong winds for quite a long period of time and these fires are becoming wind-driven fires. As the wind increases, the opportunity for spot fires ahead of the main fire was occurring on a regular basis. The fires then become very uncontrolled and difficult to manage.” These early and uncontrollable fires have further disrupted efforts to prepare for the season proper.

Authorities try to prepare as early as possible using as much data as is available to them at the time. “We do an assessment of the spring fire season outlook, which is made available through our Bureau of Meteorology along with the Australian firefighting authorities council,” said Hollier. He also described other tactics towards mitigating the effects of wildfires that authorities engage in on top of the preventative burning that they were able to achieve: “There were over 400 hazard action burns that did occur in areas that had been identified locally as areas of potential risk over and above the hazard action burns that have occurred. Equally, there were other activities that were put in place to try and mitigate against fire happening in the landscape, whether it was a series of education awareness campaigns or contacting a community at risk to ask if they were aware of the circumstances in their area and if they had made their preparations.”

Places that were devastated by the Black Summer have been suffering again. These patterns are evidenced by Prof Bowman: “There is plenty of fuel in the landscape – we have already had serious bushfires in Gippsland in eastern Victoria, areas burned in 2019–20 are reburning with devastating ecological impacts.”

Although preparations are similar to previous years, in response to growing demand, more aircraft are being utilized in this season’s response

Although preparations are similar to previous years, in response to growing demand, more aircraft are being utilized in this season’s response, said Brandon Johnson, Senior Program Manager, Firefighting Operations for Erickson: “State of preparedness was much the same as past seasons, with the exception of the addition of another aircraft in Essendon, Victoria.”

Response

In large countries like Australia, where there are sparsely populated areas, a challenge is in knowing when or where an ignition may take place. You can be quickly informed if an accidental fire starts near a populated area, and the response from a local air base can be rapid, but in the expanse of the countryside, it can be more difficult, especially with certain weather phenomena. Hollier described how hard it was for QFES to react to unpredictable ignitions: “One of the challenges we had again was dry lightning storms. They are a contributor to a large number of fires. Even during the peak of activity, we had dry lightning storms come through that started additional fires. It’s always going to be a challenge when you have an ignition that you don’t know where it’s going to start at any one time.”

Knowing that this season was going to be bad, aerial firefighting has played a wider and more crucial role than previously. Using aircraft more than usual to supplement ground efforts was an avenue that QFES followed, Hollier said: “We’ve used aircraft a lot earlier in relation to responding to supporting the firefighters on the ground as we were expecting a very active season. We started to see a lot of fast-moving fires that require resourcing. During the height of activity, we had over 40 aircraft just on standby and/or out on fires collectively. That weight of attack certainly did assist to either steering or assisting the ground crews to do what they needed to do, including property protection where they could.”

In addition to the LAT mentioned earlier, Hollier further described the fleet operated by QFES: “[Our] fleet includes a total of 13 contracted light airplanes and helicopters to map fires and conduct strategic waterbombing activities. QFES also has access to around 150 additional aircraft in a call-when-needed capacity. In addition, QFES can call on support from interstate agencies if necessary.

“For the 2023 bushfire season, a Black Hawk rejoined the Queensland fleet after the same type of aircraft was extensively used during the devastating 2019 bushfires. New aircraft also included two fixed-wing waterbombing aircraft with a combined capacity of up to 6,400L. The third additional aircraft, an intelligence gathering helicopter, ensures our incident management teams have access to up-to-date, accurate intelligence, to allow them to make informed choices.”

Hunter added: “The NTFRS draws on resources across the NT to bolster capability based on risk. This season has seen around 100 firefighters and additional appliances being deployed across the region from other commands. Through the work of [government agency] Bushfires NT, the availability of aircraft to support operations has occurred and will be a key resource as the season continues.”

As well as employing aircraft, Australian wildfire response is a very collaborative endeavor, across agencies, jurisdictions and countries, Hollier explained: “We’re very fortunate where we have the collaborative approach across Queensland, across all of the land management agencies that have responsibility for managing fire in the landscape. That would include Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, the Department of Natural Resources and other government entities where we can work collaboratively in both mitigation areas but as well as response. We have an excellent working relationship with all of those agencies. However, of course, it started to come to a point where we needed to ask for further assistance, particularly in October. Collectively, we as the State of Queensland went to the other jurisdictions to seek some assistance to mainly provide some fatigue respite for our firefighters who had been going for many months. It was about support, with firefighters from Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, and from New Zealand through some incident management teams.”

As well as employing aircraft, Australian wildfire response is a very collaborative endeavor, across agencies, jurisdictions and countries

Hunter agreed: “From early 2022, there has been a consistent and collaborative approach in preparedness for the upcoming fire season. This ranged from preparing and enhancing NTFRS resourcing and crews in a range of areas from geographic information system (GIS), appliances and crew welfare, to heat management strategies. External to the NTFRS, this involved working with a range of community stakeholders around what their responsibilities are, what preparedness activities need to occur and what community resilience looks like for the residences of Central Australia and the Barkly region. A considerable amount of work has occurred by all agencies that have a responsibility, and this has enhanced interoperability better than it ever has been.”

Although there is an overall trend to more and larger wildfires, planning where and when firefighting resources may be needed has become difficult at a local level, Johnson explained: “The erratic weather patterns the past few years are making it very difficult to accurately predict where the activity will be.”

Night operations

Growth in the nighttime aerial firefighting operations in recent years has helped Australia increase its response to large and destructive fires. But in order to take advantage of the cooler temperatures and more humid conditions of night, and to continue operations requires training, equipment and capacity, which is still not available to all the operators responsible for this task.

No region has been untouched by the fires starting in spring and continuing throughout a long summer, leading to Australian authorities and operators planning and gearing up for another wildfire season that will be coming ever sooner

Worst in a decade

At the time of writing, bushfires are still burning and the official season looks to be longer than normal, supporting and continuing the trend of growing and overlapping fire seasons on both sides of the equator. Fires that would normally have been suppressed or doused have been too strong and too mobile for many efforts to quell them. No region has been untouched by the fires starting in spring and continuing throughout a long summer, leading to Australian authorities and operators planning and gearing up for another wildfire season that will be coming ever sooner. Despite the awful and growing threat of wildfires, firefighters are resilient and selfless. Hollier’s pride in his colleagues was evident: “Permanent firefighters even here from Brisbane gave up their annual leave to go out and assist their fellow firefighters in the southwest parts of the state. That’s just a true reflection of the community spirit, the firefighter ethos, and the dedication, particularly, in the fire rescue space. The permanent firefighters help their fellow volunteers and auxiliary staff in areas at the greatest time of need. I think that is a true testimony of how communities will pull together and support communities right across the whole of Queensland. We see it not just in fires, we see it in floods and we see it in cyclones. This is the testimony of the true Australian spirit.”

Community is a throughline that is regularly heard from different voices, and Hunter put it at the forefront of preparations for the next fire season: “Process is essential to moving forward with enhancing capability and building community resilience. We recognize the success that long-term collaboration has created with other agencies, and with the community and community-led agencies, and we will continue to build on that success.”

This spirit can only take the fight to fires so far; greater investment in resources – such as aircraft – is needed, along with a wider holistic approach to preventative measures. In a call to action, Prof Bowman said: “We need a radical rethink of how we manage bushfires with a huge investment in community bushfire adaptation. This is a transformative project politically and we may not get the necessary work done fast enough.”