Heli-dip makes accessing water for firefighting in remote areas easier

Transcript

[Text on screen] David Ross, Project manager – Securing Remote Water Supplies

[David Ross] When we look through history, we see that almost every one of our major fire campaigns, particularly in the east of the state, have started from lightning.

[Sound of helicopter]

[David Ross] And ground crews, just because of the remoteness of fires, can take up to 2 hours to get to a fire.

[Sound of chainsaws]

[David Ross] One of the biggest challenges in fighting remote fires in Victoria is quick access to water. And timing is everything.

[Sound of helicopter]

[David Ross] We can respond fairly quickly with aircraft, but once the aircraft get there and put one load of water on, then their turnaround times in a lot of these remote locations are too long as well.

[Text on screen] Dunstans Track ‘heli-dip’ (former gravel pit site) Nariel

[Jarrod Hayse] What we're testing today is one of a series of remote water points that we're building

[Text on screen] Jarrod Hayse District Manager, Ovens/Air Attack Supervisor

[Jarrod Hayse] to support aircraft to quickly respond to and suppress bushfires in remote areas of the Great Dividing Range.

[Sound of helicopter]

[David Ross] The only way to keep fires small is with rapid response. So the remote water supply here shortens aircraft turnaround time considerably.

[Sound of helicopter]

[Text on screen] the ‘dip’ tank will allow helicopters to fill their belly tanks or long line buckets with up to 11,000 litres of water

[Sound of helicopter]

[Jarrod Hayse] Having these remote storages in high elevations of our landscape in north east Victoria, enables our aircraft to access water quickly, close to where the fire started and what they can do is by putting the water on the fire quickly they'll buy time for our firefighters to be able to respond in trucks, four wheel drives and bulldozers, and even our rappel firefighters on the ground with their hand tools and chainsaws.

[David Ross] So we've engaged a number of local contractors to help with pulling this work together and local suppliers as well. What we've got here is the three 35,000 litre storage tanks. They feed through these valves into a manifold, through 150ml pipe into that open top dip tank down there.

[Sound of helicopter]

[Music]

[David Ross] Keeping fire small, keeps our firefighters safer, keeps our community safer, and keeps our environment safer.

[Music]

[Forest Fire Management Victoria logo]