Yesterday morning all 10 fire fighting aircraft and five RFS personal carriers were grounded at the same time in the small centrally located rural airport.

To fight the fires two types of aircraft are being used, helicopters and fixed wing. Two fire birds, light helicopters, are used for air attack, fire spotting and mapping and two medium sized helicopters known as a helitacs are carrying 1300 to 1400L buckets of water, which can be sourced from dams close to the fires.

“Aviation work in support of ground crews. One does not succeed without the other. We can only reduce the fire the ground crews are the only ones who can put it out,” Air Attack Supervisor Sean McArdle said.

The six fixed wing aircraft are usually used for agricultural spraying but are contracted to the RFS during the bushfire season. They can carry 2800L of water or chemicals (foam, gel or retardant) at a time and use about 200,000L a day. Fixed wing aircrafts drop 30 to 40m lines of retardant to help build containment lines before a fire reaches an area.

The aircrafts use approximately 3000L in fuel a day costing about $5000.

Co-ordinating the aviation operation are four main positions responsible for tasking aircrafts, managing resources and mapping where fires are active and where crews are working and emailing the information back to the control centre.

“Stress levels can get quite high especially if there are a lot of aircraft or there is bad weather but we have a good support team and work together to get it done,” Air Operations Manager Angela Lonergan said.

Late yesterday afternoon the fixed wing aircraft were sent home with rain helping to ease the fires. The helicopters will continue to be based from Glen Innes Airport.