Former fire chiefs 'tried to warn Scott Morrison' to bring in more water-bombers ahead of horror bushfire season
Twenty-three former fire and emergency leaders say they tried for months to warn Prime Minister Scott Morrison that Australia needed more water-bombers to tackle bigger, faster and hotter bushfires.
Key points:
- Former NSW fire chief Greg Mullins says he doesn't believe he will get a meeting with Scott Morrison
- He says earlier preparation would have helped keep people safe in the horror bushfires currently gripping NSW and Queensland
- A giant water-bomber is on its way to Australia from the USA
Former New South Wales Fire and Rescue chief Greg Mullins — one of the founders of the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action Group — said the group sought a meeting with the Federal Government to discuss the issue in April and again in May, immediately after the federal election.
"We have tried since April to get a meeting with the Prime Minister," Mr Mullins told ABC Radio on Thursday morning. "It's clear now we won't get that meeting.
"We had some pretty simple asks that we wanted to talk to the government about.
"Funding for large aerial fire tankers. People would have seen the images the other day of the Hercules coming in and dropping in 15,000 litres of retardant at Turramurra. I watched that with great interest because I was in charge of the fire there in 1994 where 17 homes were lost. That cut the fire off immediately.
"We're only going to have seven of those [aircraft] this year. I've just come back from California and they had about 30 on one fire.
"Had we spoken back in April, one of the things we would've said is to try to get more aircraft on lease from the northern hemisphere because (we knew) this was going to be a horror fire season. They can be a decisive weapon.
"If they (the government) had spoken to us back then, maybe they could have allocated more money to have more of those aircraft, but they didn't and they're probably not available now."
Mr Mullins said the group had been told they would be able to meet with Natural Disaster and Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud "in a few weeks".
"It is very, very disappointing that we weren't listened to earlier because we actually predicted exactly what's happening now. Measures could have been taken months ago to make the firefighters more effective and to make community safer."
Four people have died and more than 200 homes have been lost in the past week as firefighting crews battle intense blazes fanned by extremely hot and dry conditions in NSW and Queensland.
On Thursday the NSW Rural Fire Service announced it was leasing a DC-10 Air Tanker from the United States to join its fleet.
The water-bombing aircraft can drop 35,000 litres of water or fire retardant in eight seconds, and will be in the country for the rest of the bushfire season.
The Rural Fire Brigade at Hanwood near Griffith in central NSW announced the lease on Wednesday in a Facebook post.
"A DC-10 Air Tanker is loaded up and almost ready to fly out of America to head to Australia," the post read.
Mr Mullins said he thought the coming summer was going to be "the worst I have ever seen" for fire crews, and renewed his calls for the government to take urgent action to address climate change and stop Australia's rising emissions.
Last week he told 7.30 that he feared it would become increasingly difficult for Australia to get firefighting help from the US, as the bushfire seasons in the two countries began to overlap.
In a statement to 7.30, Mr Littleproud said the Australian Government contributed almost $15 million annually to the National Aerial Firefighting Centre and "is currently considering further funding towards this capability".