Carwoola fire: NSW RFS praises role of giant American air tankers that helped contain blaze
Updated
Two giant American air tankers, known as Southern Belle and Thor, have proven themselves yet again this bushfire season, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS) has said.
The NSW Government has been trialling the use of the DC10 Very Large Air Tanker and Hercules C130 Large Air Tanker as part of a $20-million pilot over two years, concluding early next month.
Both specialised aircraft were used to suppress the recent Carwoola fire east of Queanbeyan, along with about 15 other firefighting aircraft.
Over a seven-hour period on Friday afternoon, the NSW RFS said Southern Belle dropped two loads totalling 85,000 litres of retardant.
During the same period, a number of Large Air Tankers, including Thor, and others from Victoria and NSW dropped five loads totalling 30,000 litres of retardant and 31,000 litres of gel.
"The Carwoola fire was halted by one of those retardant lines," NSW RFS Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers said.
The fire, which swept the Carwoola and Captains Flat region, destroyed 11 homes, damaged 12 others and destroyed 45 outbuildings.
"It was just to the west of Hoskinstown where that fire was burning quite aggressively and they coordinated the hit of Southern Belle and Thor and two other large air tankers we got from Victoria," Deputy Commissioner Rogers said.
"That's what contributed to slowing that fire from impacting on Hoskinstown."
More cost effective to refuel in Sydney
ACT RFS chief officer Joe Murphy also praised the contribution of the American air tankers, but he cautioned that "boots on the ground" would always be critical in suppressing fires.
"Air tankers can dump a huge amount of retardant over a long distance, but by the same token they have a fairly lengthy turnaround time compared to smaller aircraft which can refuel and reload locally," he said.
Thor can be refuelled and supported from air bases in the ACT as well as from regional NSW air bases at Albury, Dubbo and Williamtown.
But Southern Belle can only be refuelled, reloaded and maintained at the Richmond RAAF base in western Sydney, due to the purpose-built onsite infrastructure, team of 20 specialist crew and large stocks of stored fire retardant.
"It is only one hour's flight time between Canberra and Richmond," Mr Murphy said.
"If we were doing this in Canberra we would be using a mobile system which can't pump it as fast and we would have to bring retardant in from interstate.
"It makes sense for the ACT to use this NSW infrastructure as needed."
Deputy Commissioner Rogers said it would cost millions of dollars for the ACT to develop the local capacity to service a DC10 like Southern Belle and he did not think more Carwoola homes would have been saved if there was such capacity in the ACT.
Planes' time on loan from United States extended
Deputy Commissioner Rogers said this year's loan of Thor and Southern Belle from America was extended by more than a month, with both air tankers now due to be returned in March.
"We had some very real concerns about how NSW was faring, so we kept them on and, given the fires that have occurred in that time, I am really glad we did," he said.
An evaluation of the two-year trial of Southern Belle and Thor is currently being undertaken by the National Aerial Firefighting Centre.
"They have proved very effective and I think they are something that we have to seriously consider having," Deputy Commissioner Rogers said.
"Air cranes will always be good but to move them quickly to other parts of the state is just not that easy or quick.
"[But] the ability to project force and drop that water on fires from a long distance away, we have never had that before so it has proven very worthwhile."
Southern Belle and Thor were used this bushfire season at many other locations including Sutton, Tarago, Gunning, Jervis Bay, Bulli Tops, Kosciusko National Park and the Pilliga.
The NSW bushfire season officially ends on March 31.
Topics: bushfire, emergency-planning, queanbeyan-2620, canberra-2600, act, nsw, captains-flat-2623
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