Page 1 of 3
Forty Years of Aviation and Forest Fire
Bryan Rees, 2014
This article is based upon a talk Bryan gave to FCRPA Members in 2014.
1
Victoria’s Forestry Heritage
https://www.victoriasforestryheritage.org.au/
Forests Commission Retired Personnel Association
27/07/2018
Mike Leonard wanted me to talk about comparisons of working for nearly 40 years in aviation. What’s
changed?
With regards to what hasn’t changed, I want to set a scene for some of you. Last Wednesday I was in a
rappel helicopter from Buller flying low level, door open, clear NE day and the vista around me showed
some of the most charismatic names in remote Victoria - the Bluff, the Razor, the Crosscut Saw, Terrible
Hollow – this was my morning vista – some things don’t change, it’s still wondrous and I watched the
eyeballs of our Canadian exchangee pop out of her head when she saw it.
I started with the FCV in 1976 in the Division of Forest Protection and with Richard Rawson in fire research.
Val Cleary was the Chief and John Barry Johnston (JBJ) the 2IC. As I was reminded in my early years, I
was just a Technical Assistant, not a forester. A lot of my early aviation days were with Richard and Con
Wood on incendiary machines, retardant drop tests and, ironically, following the MAFFS around.
Nearly 40 years later I’m the Senior Aviation Services Officer, having been involved with aircraft since
1978. For about the last 25 years I’ve been responsible for aviation training and safety.
I left FCV in 1987 to work for the NSCA and had some wonderful experiences and worked with terrific guys,
who also are still involved in aviation. I returned in 1989, after the NSCA collapse, to set up the rappel
program for what was then the Department of Conservation and Environment (DCE). I stayed because I
genuinely believed it was the best fire service in the country for aviation, and why go anywhere else, and I
needed a job.
During my time I’ve been fortunate to be able to work and train with aircraft on fires in most States of
Australia, and in NZ, Spain, Canada and the USA.
My first flight for the FCV was in a Hughes 500 with Ted Stuckey and Tony Manderson at Rowley’s Ridge
for a blivet burn run by Garry Squires, and some junior forester called Leonard. No doors, no safety brief,
headset on and told just sit there and shut up.
In my time there have been six name changes (possibly seven) since the FCV, and I’ve worked under eight
Chiefs of Division/Chief Fire Officers all of whom have had their unique style and faced their special
challenges.
Progressively we have moved from purely suppressing fires to managing fires – we protect water from fire.
The pressures of the urban interface and politics, and public expectation and public engagement, have
intensified to a level I believe that the old Chiefs and District Foresters could not possibly have foreseen.
The catch cry these days is stakeholder and engagement. When I first started, a fork was a stakeholder
and engagement was something you avoided.
The priority for an Incident Controller (IC) 10-20 years ago was to get the fire out. Now the priority is to
manage the community and stakeholder expectations, and operations come second.
No longer can crews drop fusees out windows on the way home to reduce fuels. The approval and public
consultation processes are lengthy and time consuming. I am not saying whether that is right or wrong – it
just is.
Since I started fires have become bigger, with major events in 2002/03 and 2006/07 before Black Saturday
replaced Ash Wednesday as the yardstick tragedy. Iconic parks such as Wilson’s Promontory and the
Grampians hadn’t burnt in my first 25 or so years, but both have been cooked in the last 10 or so years.
Page 3 of 3
Forty Years of Aviation and Forest Fire
Bryan Rees, 2014
This article is based upon a talk Bryan gave to FCRPA Members in 2014.
3
Victoria’s Forestry Heritage
https://www.victoriasforestryheritage.org.au/
Forests Commission Retired Personnel Association
27/07/2018
Discussions were once held face to face. Information was gathered and processed for a morning shift. Now
it’s a photo from a phone emailed immediately and expectations are high.
GPS tracks all aircraft and vehicles, even rappel crews. We do SAR on all aircraft every 3 mins. I can tell
where every aircraft is in the State immediately.
Cameras cannot only gather photos but can also tell where the photo was taken with a Latitude and
Longitude, and then deliver it to the Incident Management Team (IMT) for all to view immediately.
The Forward Looking InfraRed (FLIR) units we first introduced in 1982 can now not only detect hot spots
but, using laser technology, they can identify the Lat/Long of the hot spot itself.
What’s Not Changed?
We still sleep in tents and whinge about food.
We still don’t walk around the back of helicopters, though nowadays the blades of the tail rotors are
bigger than the main rotors on the ones when I first started.
We still don’t have enough people on the fireline.
We still drop Phoschek and it’s still red.
Burns still get out.
Radios still don’t work at times.
Vehicles still get bogged.
Dozers still don’t have lights.
Overall
We’ve lost a lot of experience and critical mass, and that includes the CFA.
We’re forgetting how to conduct remote area firefighting.
We’re more risk averse, and firefighter safety is #1 although there is clearly nothing wrong with that.
There is a lot of Victoria covered by a term “fire killed ash” where we may not send firefighters. Does this
mean we will get bigger fires?
We appear to have more media officers than we do Incident Controllers.
Still, I get to work in some amazing parts of Victoria with really good people.