Dubbo RFS Training Centre to host Aerial Firefighting Conference

The contractor scooped water from dams and lakes and dumped it on fires from his helicopter during the season, which had him follow blazes from Glenn Innes in northern NSW all the way down to Victoria.

He worked non-stop from July 2019 to May 2020, such was the ferocity of the fires.

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"When we started losing houses at Old Bar, I spent three days on a bucket-line ... just saving houses for three days," Mr Cassin told ACM.

"That was pretty big - and then we never stopped."

Mr Cassin is a regional airwork specialist for Microflite in Victoria and has worked up and down the east coast of Australia, fighting fires from the sky above Merimbula on the south coast to Dubbo in the central west.

He described being up in the air during Black Summer as "pretty horrible".

"You almost felt a little bit panicky ... there's a few machines up there, but there's a lot of us chasing around," he said.

"You can see the flames licking into houses and on the gutters and ... it's dropping water and then trying to get back quick enough so that it doesn't get into the house."

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He recalls one day when flames jumped onto a house and began burning leaves in the gutter. He extinguished the fire and returned with another load of water, saving the house.

Then there was another time when he returned with a load to find the house engulfed in flames - "there's not much you can do" in that situation.

"It gets your adrenaline going, when there's houses and people involved. And to know that you've helped is very rewarding. But it's very sad, seeing what's going on," he said.

With an El Nino on the way and not a lot of fire activity for the past few years, Mr Cassin says it is "always gonna be scary" in the lead-up to the firefighting season.

"I've been doing it long enough to know it goes in cycles ... you have three or four seasons where it's pretty quiet .... but with all the rain ... that fuel is building up."

Mr Cassin is one of 200 specialists attending the international Aerial Firefighting Conference at Dubbo Rural Fire Service (RFS) Training Centre on Wednesday, August 2 and Thursday, August 3.

READ ALSO: Dubbo firefighters presented with National Emergency Medal for work during Black Summer Bushfires

He will join delegates from the Asia Pacific, Europe and America sharing best-practice techniques and inspecting the latest technology in the field.

NSW RFS commissioner Rob Rogers and deputy commissioner Peter McKechnie will be presenting on local techniques. The CSIRO will present on climate change.

Julia Guy, international relations at Tangent Link - the company organising the conference - said the industry is known for helping other countries.

There will be Australian speakers who have been assisting with the recent fires in Canada, and some of the delegates from overseas have helped in Australia.

"When we had the fires in Australia during 2019/20 we had people from Canada, we had people from France, we had people from California," Ms Guy told ACM.

"The communities do work in different countries when they're called upon ... there's a lot of cooperation within the communities to help other countries out."

One of the products on display from Australian company Rascal - Retardant and Suppressant, Computerised, Automated Loading - reportedly saves 50 per cent on fire retardant loading time, allowing aircraft to make twice as many trips during a fire.

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The company is in negotiations with agencies in US and Europe to supply them with the technology, which is already being used by the NSW RFS.

There will be static technology displays over the two days and an RFS Chinook helicopter demonstration.

Other conferences are being held simultaneously in Athens and Seattle.

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