Dr Philip Zylstra is a fire scientist and forest ecologist who looks at how plant species interact with weather and the terrain to affect fire behaviour, and how this in turn affects the survival of flora and fauna. His work has led to groundbreaking advances in firebehaviour modelling and landscape analysis. Phil believes that the questions we most need answered are often the ones that challenge paradigms and policies, but that the scale of our impact on the Earth means we no longer have the luxury of avoiding controversy. His current focus is on understanding how fire management can be adapted to work with the ‘ecological controls’ that have enabled forests to persist over evolutionary timescales.
One of the things about being lowered on a long cable under a helicopter is that the downdraft can start you spinning, which makes you dizzy and can play havoc with the stability of the aircraft. If that goes badly enough as they’re lowering you through the gap in a tall forest canopy somewhere, you could theoretically swing into a treetop which could theoretically get the helicopter tied to the tree by your cable, in which case (theoretically), they need to cut the cable. That’s never happened to me or any other Remote Area Fire Trained (RAFT) crew that I’ve heard of. To my knowledge, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife
