Aerial Firefighting in Australia: Aircraft, Tactics, Safety and Global Lessons

Australia’s aerial firefighting system in 2026–27

Australia does not operate one single national air force for bushfires. State and territory agencies retain primary responsibility for emergency response, while the National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC), working within AFAC’s national arrangements, contracts and coordinates aviation resources that can be shared across jurisdictions.

For the 2026–27 season, NAFC’s current fleet page lists 175 contracted aircraft on behalf of state and territory governments. When Call When Needed aircraft plus state-owned and state-contracted fleets are included, NAFC says more than 500 aircraft from over 150 operators can be available for firefighting across Australia. NAFC also states that the emergency aviation capability is predominantly Australian owned and registered, strengthening sovereign capacity while still allowing specialist international support when required.

The nationally funded 2026–27 National Aviation Assets program adds strategically shared aircraft to this wider system. Current national assets include a C-130Q Hercules large air tanker with a Cessna Citation birddog based at Richmond in New South Wales, two UH-60L Black Hawks based at Albury and Parafield, and a Bell 214ST based in Queensland. The Bell 214ST is intended as a multi-role aircraft capable of firefighting as well as personnel, evacuation and cargo tasks.

The Australian Government has continued funding to strengthen national surge capability. That is important because severe fires, floods and cyclones can occur at the same time, and because longer fire seasons can reduce the old assumption that aircraft will always be available from the Northern Hemisphere when Australia needs them.

What aircraft actually do on a bushfire

The popular image is a large aircraft flying low and dropping thousands of litres onto a wall of flame. That happens, but it is only one part of aerial operations. Current NSW RFS doctrine lists roles including strategic and tactical reconnaissance, fireground reconnaissance, firebombing, air-attack supervision, transport of firefighters and equipment, insertion and recovery of remote-area crews, and rescue.

Water is mainly a short-duration cooling and knock-down agent. It can reduce flame intensity and help ground crews move in. Foam can improve wetting and penetration. Long-term retardant is generally laid on unburnt fuels to slow combustion after the water carrier has evaporated. The tactical choice depends on the fire, fuels, weather, terrain, available aircraft, nearby water or reload bases and the objective set by incident management.

Why early attack matters — and why aircraft still have limits

Aerial resources are often most valuable during initial attack, while a fire is still relatively small. Aircraft can reach remote ignitions quickly, slow the head or flanks, deal with spot fires and support crews travelling over slower or difficult access routes. Victoria is also investing in remote helicopter dip tanks to cut refill turnaround times; in 2026, Forest Fire Management Victoria reported that strategically located tanks could reduce some turnaround times by up to 15 minutes.

But aircraft operate inside an aviation safety envelope. Strong wind, turbulence, terrain, dense smoke, poor visibility, electrical hazards and crowded fireground airspace can all reduce or stop operations. In the most extreme fire behaviour, spotting may occur well ahead of a retardant line and fire intensity may exceed what a drop can hold.

This is also why the phrase “send more water bombers” can oversimplify the problem. The useful question is whether the available aircraft can safely deliver the right product, in the right place, at the right time, with a realistic tactical objective and ground follow-up.

AIIMS 2025 and air-ground coordination

A major change since the original report is the release of AIIMS 2025. AFAC published the new Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System manual in October 2025, replacing AIIMS 2017. AIIMS remains the common incident-management system used by Australian fire, emergency service and land-management agencies.

For aviation, the practical importance is integration. Aircraft are not an independent layer operating above the incident. Air operations must fit the incident objectives, intelligence, safety controls, logistics and priorities of the wider response. The current AIIMS resources retain fire-specific aviation roles within the system and place stronger emphasis on safety, information flow and adaptable multi-agency management.

At national level, AFAC’s National Resource Sharing Centre helps prioritise and move aircraft between jurisdictions. This matters when several states are under pressure at once. A large tanker sitting in one state is not automatically the best resource for the next fire; national coordination is about placing capability where it can have the greatest operational effect.

Fire danger terminology has changed

Older aerial-firefighting material often describes public fire danger using the former Forest Fire Danger Index categories. That terminology should not be used as the current public rating scale.

Australia now uses the Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS). The public ratings are Moderate, High, Extreme and Catastrophic, with “No Rating” when proactive community action is not required. The Bureau of Meteorology explains that the underlying Fire Behaviour Index (FBI) helps inform the rating. FFDI remains relevant in historical and scientific contexts, but it is not the current national public warning scale.

Safety around aircraft: firefighters and the public

Firebombing involves large masses of water, foam or retardant moving at speed. NSW RFS doctrine states that personnel are not to be in or close to areas targeted for aerial attack and that crews must be advised when aircraft are operating on the incident ground. Agency procedures, briefings and air-ground communications always take precedence over general advice in an article like this.

People should also avoid travelling toward fires simply to watch aircraft. Extra traffic can interfere with emergency access and place occupants in areas where conditions can change rapidly.

What about fire retardant and foam?

Long-term retardant is not simply coloured water. It is designed to reduce the combustibility of vegetation after the water in the mix has evaporated. The red or coloured appearance helps pilots see where previous drops were placed.

Current NSW RFS public guidance says no known adverse long-term or chronic health effects have been attributed to the long-term retardants it uses, while recognising that concentrated products require worker precautions. Aquatic environments need extra care: foams and retardants can affect aquatic organisms, so pilots try to avoid applying suppressants within 100 metres of waterways.

If retardant enters a rainwater tank, NSW RFS advises that the water should not be used for drinking by people, pets or livestock. Property owners should follow their local fire agency or recovery authority advice for clean-up rather than relying on generic internet advice.

Sovereign capability and the changing fleet

Australia still benefits from international operators and shared expertise, but the trend is toward stronger domestic capability. NSW RFS, for example, has a long-term arrangement covering its agency-owned aviation fleet, including its Boeing 737 large air tanker, Bell 412 helicopters and a Chinook. National contracts are also increasingly using Australian operators and locally based crews.

The 2026–27 fleet shows another important change: aircraft are being selected for multi-role emergency capability, not only water bombing. Cargo transport, evacuation, intelligence gathering, linescan, air attack supervision and support to other disasters can improve the value of expensive aviation assets across the year.

Night firebombing is another area of development, but it should not be presented as normal for every aircraft or every incident. Night operations require specifically approved aircraft, crews, procedures and risk controls. The correct operational position is that night capability exists in parts of the Australian system, but its use is specialised and situation-dependent.

What Australia can learn from overseas

The most useful international comparison is not simply which country owns the biggest aircraft. Different systems have different geography, fuels, funding and governance. The stronger lesson is how nations build mixed fleets, surge capacity, pre-positioning and common command arrangements.

In the United States, federal agencies share a large interagency aviation system using contracted and government aircraft, including large and very large air tankers, helicopters, single-engine tankers, scoopers, supervision aircraft and military C-130 surge capability. Aircraft are positioned around the country according to expected wildfire activity rather than being concentrated at one national base.

Europe’s 2026 wildfire preparations provide another model. The EU Civil Protection Mechanism and rescEU system placed 22 firefighting aeroplanes and five helicopters on standby across participating countries, while also pre-positioning hundreds of firefighters. That approach treats aircraft and ground capability as one shared regional system rather than competing alternatives.

Climate change is making availability and timing harder

The CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology’s State of the Climate 2024 reports an increase in extreme fire weather and a longer fire season across large parts of Australia since the 1950s. It also projects continued increases in dangerous fire-weather days and longer seasons for much of southern and eastern Australia.

For aviation planners, longer seasons create several pressures. Aircraft and crews may be required for more months of the year. Northern and Southern Hemisphere fire seasons can overlap. Maintenance windows become harder to schedule. Pilots, engineers and specialist air-operations personnel are finite resources. At the same time, wetter periods in parts of northern and central Australia can produce heavy grass growth that becomes a major fuel load once it dries.

The practical response is not simply to buy more large tankers. It is to improve detection, early dispatch, basing, water and retardant logistics, intelligence, domestic workforce capacity and resource sharing so the aircraft already available can be used where they are most effective.

Practical lessons for the public, firefighters and planners

Conclusion

Aerial firefighting has become a central part of Australian bushfire response, but its value comes from integration rather than spectacle. A small tanker close to a new ignition may be more useful than a much larger aircraft an hour away. A helicopter cycling quickly from a nearby dip site may outperform a fixed-wing aircraft for one task, while a large air tanker may be the better option for another.

Australia’s 2026–27 arrangements show a mature system built around a large nationally contracted fleet, state-owned and state-contracted aircraft, Australian operators, nationally shared surge assets and stronger all-hazards capability. The move to AIIMS 2025, continued investment in intelligence and domestic aviation capacity, and better national resource sharing all support that system.

The operational principle remains simple: the right aircraft, for the right task, at the right time, integrated with people on the ground. No aircraft can remove bushfire risk, and no aerial fleet replaces warnings, evacuation planning, prepared communities or safe firefighting on the ground.