For too long successive Australian governments, both Labor and Coalition, have ignored the warnings of science. They have also ignored informed pleading to protect Australians from the consequences of this wilful ignorance.
In 1987 one of us (JC) organised a national conference on climate change. Dr Barry Pittock of CSIRO repeated a warning that was already being widely discussed, that climate change would lead to more frequent and more severe extreme events.
In 1988 JC initiated a Senate Committee inquiry into climate change. This committee reported in January 1990 and found, inter alia, that ‘the element that is missing is not information but action’. In 1990 the Hawke/Keating Government promised to reduce greenhouse emissions to twenty per cent below the 1988 levels by 2005. This target had already been set at the Toronto Conference in 1988. However, emissions were not cut but continued to rise. Emissions are presently rising about two per cent per year. These past events are mentioned for two reasons only: to indicate that many people, including many non-climate-scientists have been aware and concerned about the portent of Black Saturday’s Victorian fires for over a quarter of a century and to indicate the high level of frustration that many of us feel about the lack of action, a lack which continues.
The Rudd Government has set a target of five per cent reduction below the 2000 level by 2020. Mr Rudd has said he will shift Heaven and Earth to get the economy growing despite the strong positive correlation between economic growth and growth of greenhouse emissions over many decades. His present spending spree will accentuate climate change as his first priority is to increase consumption. Unless he recognises and implements alternative and better economic strategies we can reasonably expect that he will fail to achieve even his very modest five per cent target; emissions will continue to grow and extreme weather events to become even more extreme and more frequent.
Given the almost inevitable acceleration of climate change how might we better protect ourselves from bushfires? Again, there is a long history of attempts to put in place a better fire fighting system with the same history of procrastination and obstruction.
What is it that the French, the Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians, Greeks and the Canadians all know and use but which Australia has rejected? It is the use of a fleet of purpose built water bombing amphibious aircraft which can scoop 6 tonnes of water in 12 seconds while in flight. It can deliver far more water to the fire in an 8-hour shift than the skycrane, do it far more cheaply (2.5 cents/L compared with 6.3 cents/L) and scores of these aircraft are in use across southern European countries and in Canada. The rejection of this water bombing aircraft has often been based on a badly designed 1982 computer simulation which used incorrect data and never tested the actual aircraft.
These aircraft, the Canadair CL 415, have been brought to Australia by Canadair on several occasions and have demonstrated their capabilities. Where the skycrane must land every hour and a quarter for refuelling the CL 415 can continue scooping and dropping for 5 hours. Where the skycrane is slow and needs refuelling between Adelaide and Melbourne the CL 415 can make the journey at twice the speed (193 knots rather than 95 knots) and immediately go into a scooping and dropping operation without refuelling.
All but a tiny portion of Victoria is accessible to scoopable water. These aircraft can also scoop in the sea. Two CL 415s working together, a standard method of operation, would drop more than two and a half times as much water per hour as the skycrane, returning to the fire more frequently than a drop every three minutes, for example, from Yan Yean to Kinglake. Skimming at treetop height the CL 415 also drops water or foam more effectively. It is equipped with cameras to see through smoke and pick out fires and, unlike the skycrane, is fully air conditioned making for much safer operation.
The quicker a fire is attacked the more likely it is that it will be controlled. It is suggested that on days such as Black Saturday two fully laden CL 415s should have been in the air continuously so that a drop could have been made on the very first outbreak of fire.
Unlike the Skycrane the CL 415 is a multipurpose aircraft. With its long range (2,400 km), 6-hour cruise time (and ability to land in two metre waves it is ideal for sea rescue, ocean surveillance for fisheries incursions and drug smuggling. Being amphibious it is ideal for getting aid to victims such as those in the Aceh tsunami. It can be fitted as a flying ambulance or as an operating theatre. It can land and deploy booms around oil spills or land at sea and roll up the beach delivering a contingent of half a dozen fully equipped soldiers or police for a wide range of purposes.
Multi-tasking a fleet of these aircraft would very substantially reduce the cost of their use for any particular purpose such as fire fighting. Australia should follow the example of the French Sécurité Civile establishing a national civil security organisation that coordinates and administers a range of national security activities.
Past efforts to have a fleet of these CL 415s operating in Australia have been rebuffed despite very generous offers by the Canadian manufacturers. Part of the opposition has stemmed from the innate jealousy of bureaucracies, protecting their own patch and not wanting to cede any control to a national civil security body. In this their criticism has often relied on the woefully misleading and unfounded conclusions of the 1982 Project Aquarius ‘study’ mentioned above.
Now is the time to put these petty jealousies and their ill-found basis aside and build a national civil security organisation equipped with a fleet of Australian assembled and maintained CL 415s. The cost of ten of these craft is far less than the dollar cost of the Kinglake and Maryvale fires, to say nothing of the loss of life.
Just as knowledge that we would face far more extreme and more frequent fire conditions has been known for a quarter century, so has knowledge that we could manage our fire fighting and other aspects of our civil security much much better. We have procrastinated on both issues for far too long.
None of the authors has any financial interest in the makers of the CL 415
John Coulter and Peter Schwerdtfeger live in the Adelaide Hills and have been through both the 1980 and 1983 Ash Wednesday fires.
John Coulter has made extensive fire protection facilities in his home which is regarded as a fire-safe house by neighbours. The house includes and in-ground concrete room. John Coulter has also visited the Greek Airforce unit flying CL415 aircraft for the fire fighting authority in Greece.
Lloyd Johns has had extensive experience of fire fighting in his role as Director of the CFS in South Australia. He has written extensively on the value of the CL 415 in fire fighting and has critiqued the project Aquarius report on the use of this aircraft.
