Engines the Key as Fire Seasons drag on
Australia’s fire season is generally getting longer, more intense and less predictable.
According to Ray Cronin, president of the Australian Helicopter Industry Association and managing director of Kestrel Aviation, each state’s fire season used to be three months, but these days, it is around 130 days to as much as 160 days.
Cronin says this year’s fire season has been less severe, because Australia had above average spring rainfall. But he warns the respite will not last forever.
“We have a couple of years of adjustment before we get back into normal fire activity levels," he told Singapore-based Pratt &Whitney agent Francis and Low.
The forest fires in Australia, from late 2019 to early 2020, were so catastrophic the Australian government called a Royal Commission to study the impact of the fires.
The Royal Commission reported 24 to 40 million hectares were destroyed, nearly 3 billion animals were killed or displaced, over 3000 homes and many other buildings were destroyed and 33 people died.
Based in the central Victorian town of Mangalore, near the foothills of Australia’s densely-forested highland country where many fires occur, Kestrel Aviation operates a fleet of 12 Bell 212 and Bell 412 helicopters.
Cronin says he likes the Bell 212 and Bell 412,
