RSCH.016.001.1136 - 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission

RSCH.016.001.1167
Bushfires 27
decision making process. 67
The NSW Legislative Council Committee Inquiry into the Service also received submissions
and evidence that the environmental provisions of the Act are making hazard reduction
burns more difficult. After considering submissions and evidence, the Committee stated in
its report: “The Committee does not support any amendment to the Act that would weaken
its environmental provisions.” 68
It is evident that there is considerable debate within both the scientific/fire fighting
community, as well as the wider community, on the role of prescribed burning as a means
to suppress bushfires. Predictably, these issues come to the fore during major bushfire
events, and are covered further in this Paper within the summary of the 2001-2002 bushfire
event.
4.1 The Use of Aircraft in Fighting Bushfires
Contemporary fire suppression makes extensive use of aircraft, and elements of the aviation
fleet have recently caught the public’s (and politicians) attention during the 2001 – 2002
bushfire season. Tracing the history of aircraft use in bushfire fighting is interesting because
it demonstrates some of the prevailing paradigms in bushfire suppression thinking.
Pyne reports that the post-WWII era saw the dissemination of improved communications,
the proliferation of truck mounted pumpers, and a revival in the interest in the use of aircraft
to combat bushfires. The Forests Commission of Victoria and the RAAF had operated a fire
reconnaissance service since 1929, and as Pyne notes, journals and professional contacts
constantly reminded Australian foresters of spectacular North American developments in
aerial fire control.
Through the 1960s the advocates of suppressing bushfires through hazard reduction knew
that the Australian public identified American firefighting with air tankers, and that the
public wanted, partly as a matter of national pride, a fleet of Australian water bombers.
However, authorities were worried that air attack was expensive, that it would consume
money at the expense of rural fire brigades - ostentatiously displaying a few high tech
symbols while failing to address fundamental problems. At a public seminar in 1966, Vines
of the CSIRO Bushfire Section cited figures about American air attack that “immediately
leads us to the conclusion, and I think it is a just one, that this multi-million [dollar] business
of chemical fire fighting in the States is a monster that is generated by its own momentum.
It doesn’t matter, you see, whether it is any good or not. So much money is involved that
every one is happy. Don’t let this happen here.” 69
67
68
69
Luscombe, D. [President of Rural Fire Service Association] in Bushfire Bulletin Vol 23 No
3, 2001, at 10.
NSW Legislative Council, General Purpose Standing Committee No 5, Report on Inquiry into
the NSW Rural Fire Service. Report No 6 June 2000 at 106.
Pyne,S. Burning Bush. A Fire History of Australia. Allen and Unwin, 1991, at 359.