Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you. Minister, I’m enjoying this conversation in a strange way we’re having about climate. This goes again to a similar question of resourcing. We’ve always been fortunate as a state, or we’ve long been fortunate, we’ve been able to count on interstate firefighters if we’ve got intense particularly bushfires burning here.
Increasingly, however, we’re seeing fires burning at the same time in various different parts of the country as the fire season grows longer and hotter. What do we do when the TWWHA for example catches fire and threatens the Derwent Valley and all the people who live there and our beautiful city and there’s fires on the east coast of Australia or there’s risk around the country? What do we do in terms of dealing with this from a resourcing point of view?
Mr ELLIS – You’re right, Ms O’Connor. It’s certainly an area that all jurisdictions are needing to address in terms of challenges. We have been fortunate, being a very large country, that there are seasonal variations, but those fire seasons are becoming longer. I think the Northern Territory, if I’m right in saying, had a 10-month fire season just recently, and that’s pretty hard going across a very large jurisdiction. But we’ve got strong national arrangements in the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements has been really important for our country to increase our resilience. But I’ll pass over to Mr Smith to discuss the way that we have that interoperability.
Mr SMITH – Thank you.
Ms O’CONNOR – How it might work when there’s fires all over the place.
Mr SMITH – Thank you, minister. Through you, minister. We’ve got well embedded procedures and protocols with national fire agencies in regard to the national resource sharing centre. These are quite readily tested and, in fact, this year alone we’ve had resources both from this state and other parts of the country attend major events in North America and Canada, or Canada and the US. But these have been tested over a number of years, ever since 2013, the Dunalley fires where we had resources moved from across the county and also New Zealand.
We also have another forum called the Chief Officers and Commissioners Group that meets very regularly when we do need to move resources so we can be agile, and that’s not only just firefighting resources in the human side of the resource network. It’s also the requirements of aircraft equipment, specialist technologies, and so forth. We have well embedded procedures and protocols and resources to stand that capability up at a moment’s notice.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you, minister. From recollection, one of the recommendations of the royal commission related to what I understood to be a promise of the Albanese government, which was to sort of start investing and establishing a national fleet, if you like, of aircraft including VLATs, very large air tankers. Do we have ready access to VLATs at, you know, ready and immediate access to them, should we need them?
Mr ELLIS – Yes. I’ll pass over to Mr Smith around the aerial arrangements.
Mr SMITH – Thank you, minister, and through you, minister. Yes, certainly, we have those arrangements in place, and in fact, it was only this week additional extra aircraft were made available into the country for this upcoming fire season.
Ms O’CONNOR – From North America or Canada?
Mr SMITH – Through a private company that will be engage through – NAFC, National Aerial Firefighting Centre, as far as the contractual arrangements I am not sure.
Ms O’CONNOR – Okay.
Mr SMITH – They will be positioned as a national resource and again through those mechanisms through NAFC and or the chief officer’s group. We can have the ability to access those for those critical incidents where those type of aircraft would be available and needed.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you. We’ve had evidence in previous hearings, particularly discussing with Parks, the increased number of dry lightning strikes and fires that are created by dry lightning strikes. What’s the role of the TFES in working with Parks to identify early where fires are starting and hit them hard so that we’re not letting them run and placing people and the TWWHA and infrastructure at risk?
Mr ELLIS – Yes, the TFS has a lightning strike strategy in place and works closely with partner agencies to take a proactive approach to the detection of and response to fires caused by lightning strikes, and if ignition is detected, aircraft are dispatched to contain and control those fires as quickly as possible, particularly in those remote areas and specialist remote area crews might need to be required. Can I say as well, Tasmania has some excellent lightning mapping capability. I have to say, it absolutely blew me away when I saw it.
Ms O’CONNOR – I know.
Mr ELLIS – Our ability to track and get on top of the locations of the lightning strikes, particularly in the large electrical storms is quite impressive. I’ll pass it over to Mr Smith.
Mr SMITH – Thank you, minister, and through you, minister. We also have a team called the state intel team that regularly evaluates the lightning bands that come across the state and prioritises where we should be spending either spotter flights or resources to actually combat those fires. It wouldn’t be a fire season without having some lightning starts, and with the additional resources we’ve got, both within our remote area capability and the winch capable aircraft that Parks runs that gets resources into those fires very quickly to ensure that we keep them small, which is all part of our overall strategy for managing fire within the state.
Ms O’CONNOR – That’s a local aircraft company. Isn’t it? Do we use –
Mr SMITH – No, it’s through a national – sorry, through –
Ms O’CONNOR – When we do the spotting, though, so when there’s been dry lightning strikes and Parks alerts the TFES or however it works that there’s a fire cooking, does the plane come from interstate or does it leave from Cambridge? What’s the company that does that work?
Mr SMITH – Through you, minister. It’s a combination, and what we’ll determine is a flight path strategy to determine the best location for that flight.
Ms O’CONNOR – Okay.
Mr SMITH – So it may go up east coast and we may use our resources that we currently have interstate, or if they’re committed, we may look to the mainland to bring a specialist aircraft in to undertake that work. But certainly, it’s coordinated with the three fire agencies and the aircraft companies to get the best aircraft in the location to determine where those starts are.
Ms O’CONNOR – We do use some local businesses, though. Don’t we?
Mr SMITH – Yes.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you.
