Random Ramblings: Aerial Wildland Firefighting: Bushfire season in Australia

As we head into the holidays at the end of 2017 and then the New Year (just two weeks away), I find myself thinking that it is summer in Australia and that means bush fire season. Perhaps because I have a couple of contacts in New South Wales in Australia, I was wondering what is going in New South Wales. The bush fire agency in New South Wales, NSW Rural Fire Service has a nice webpage chock full of good links with a map of bush fire activity at the top of their entry page. The NSW Rural Fire Service has a nice Facebook page where they post videos, photos, and of course, information about bush fires. For those of you who prefer Twitter, the NSW Rural Fire Service Twitter page may be found here.

I knew from following Bill Gabbert's Fire Aviation that one of 10 Tanker Carrier's DC-10's (T-910 aka Southern Belle) and a Coulson C-130 (T-132, aka Thor) are under contract to New South Wales for their summer bush fire season. As I understand it, air tankers in Australia are considered a national resource and shared across Australian States as needed during bush fire season. Which probably explains why Coulson's T-132 was in Avalon, Victoria (Australia) when Coulson's T-131 (known as bomber 390) arrived in Avalon last week to start a contract in Victoria.

Fire Aviation posts on New South Wales (good videos and photos)

Coulson's T-132 arrives in New South Wales

10 Tanker Carrier's T-910 arrives in New South Wales

Coulson's C-130 on Facebook

10 Tanker Carrier on Facebook

Here are two Youtube videos of bush fire activity in New South Wales, both taken in late 2016.