WA Govt secures air tankers for fire response

The State government invested $11 million to secure a C130 Hercules LAT to remain in WA for four fire seasons, including this year, and confirmed on Sunday that a Commonwealth funded LAT, due to arrive later this month, will also be based in WA this bushfire season.

The national LAT Boeing 737 Fireliner is a win for fire and emergency services personnel and volunteers who are bracing themselves for a busy few months ahead.

Both LATs to fly under the directives of the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) will be based at Busselton-Margaret River Airport and have the capacity to carry more than 15,000 litres of fire suppressant.

Highlighting that WA is the largest emergency management jurisdiction in the Southern Hemisphere, Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson said the LATs were well-suited to the WA environment due to their greater endurance and fast-cruising speeds.

"As the Emergency Services Minister, I welcome all the firefighting firepower that we can muster to be totally prepared for any major fires that we face," Mr Dawson said.

WA's aerial fleet is comprised of 36 aircraft and will again feature two Black Hawk helicopters this year that can hold up to 4500L of water or suppressant.

Mr Dawson said the government was investing more than $140m into equipment for WA's emergency services for the fire season, including new appliances, new facilities and personal protective clothing.

DFES commissioner Darren Klemm said the LATs were incredibly effective at building containment lines to stop the spread of bushfires and could travel at speeds of more that 700 kilometres per hour when fully loaded.

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"The seasonal outlook for this summer indicates that large parts of WA are going to experience an increased bushfire risk - we know that we're going to see difficult days this season," Mr Klemm said.

"Each day during the summer bushfire season there will be more than 30 aircraft on standby in WA, ready to be called upon in an emergency."

However, The Nationals WA emergency services spokesman Martin Aldridge said having both aircraft based in Busselton throughout the bushfire season flew in the face of the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council's seasonal outlook, which showed significant bushfire risk in WA's north this summer.

"It is frustrating that the government has not planned for a northern operating base at either RAAF Pearce or even Geraldton," Mr Aldridge said.

In terms of the government's bushfire preparedness this season, Mr Aldridge said DFES had a fleet of more than 200 appliances that were operating beyond their design life, while "the State government has done practically nothing to address the shortfall of technicians this summer, instead calling upon fly in fly out mechanics from the east coast at significant cost".

With the State's telecommunication and power networks also vital in responding to bushfire emergencies and a huge number of blackspots still littering WA's regional and remote areas, Mr Aldridge said DFES communication sites were also vulnerable to natural disasters and power disruptions, with Mr Dawson recently confirming in parliament that DFES communications service repeater infrastructure doesn't have the technology to remotely monitor the health and performance of its repeaters.

"DFES still does not have a capability to monitor the health of their essential radio network," Mr Aldridge said.

"Instead, they await users of the network, emergency service volunteers, to report when the network is not functioning."

Mr Aldridge said he was also not convinced that Western Power was alive to the community risk which arises from power outages and delayed reconnection due to fire weather conditions.

At the time of writing, he was waiting to be briefed by Telstra on the telco's fire season preparations.

Mr Dawson advised parliament last month that the after-action reviews for the 2021 Calgardup Bushfire in Margaret River and the unprecedented four level 3 bushfires which ran concurrently across the south of the State last February were in the final stages of approval and due to be completed by the end of this year.