Has Australia considered sharing a firefighting aircraft fleet with a country in the northern Hemisphere such as Canada?
Link is to article about Canada's great need for firefighting aircraft.
Call me crazy... but 99% of the time wouldn't a shared firefighting aircraft fleet shared between Australia and Canada or perhaps a European nation only be needed in one or the other place at any one given time of year??
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2026/10/18/de-havilland-calls-for-national-water-bomber-fleet-as-it-scrambles-to-meet-demand/Open linkView original on lemmy.ca
25 replies
We already do. Though the issue now is that northern and southern hemisphere fire seasons are increasingly overlapping, making sharing firefighting aircraft much more difficult.
I didn't know that! They should make a diplomatic/political event of solidarity, a great global migration of firefighting aircraft shared by nations all trying to mitigate climate change and preserve human and natural landscapes!!?
Why doesn't everyone know about this!? The story sells itself.
Can't speak for Canadian news, but Australian news gives it a mention every now and then. It's been going on for so long it's kind of old news to most at this point.
I've often read about crews coming and going but not equipment like planes. We do hear of power company trucks heading to the US to help out in disasters there.
https://www.cdnfirefighter.com/canada-sends-military-transport-plane-crew-to-fight-australian-wildfires/ here's one from 2020 when my state was pretty much entirely fire. There's a number of articles from over the years, mainly around really bad fire seasons.
Very cool thanks for sharing the link!
It is in the news, though there's usually not a huge song-and-dance about it. It's mostly just mates helping mates (with the necessary international agreements in place).
Australia has regularly sent large air tankers and firefighters to the U.S. and Canada (though I'm unsure about aircraft into Canada), and most recently firefighting helicopters and firefighters to France.
Yes let's stop climate change by sending planes across the world
The worlds going to burn anyway, why not just let it right. Maybe the flames will consume humanity and then the world will be saved /s
Fire seasons? Ontario forest fires burn all year around.
My understanding (which may be wrong) is that in the last few years we've increasingly seen fires outside of the expected fire season. For example, our awful 2019-2020 fire season began in August, iirc; and the fire that gutted parts of LA was at the beginning of January. With this happening, you can't really afford to have critical resources on the other side of the planet if you want to be protected at home. It's going to get harder even to send a team to help the other hemisphere, some years; though I'm sure both countries will still try to do that much.
Ok about what about a 2/3rds - 1/3rd split that oscillates with the seasons?
If there's fire in both places at the same time the diplomatic fallout would mean neither place would help each other anymore.
Having said that, the Country fire volunteers of Australia do a darn good job travelling to helping each other out. They do hold a hose.
I don't know much about these planes, but I imagine it'd be a task to get them across the ocean twice a year.
That plus maintaining it would be hell between jurisdictions.
I’m not an expert by any means, but I believe the logistics of flying across major oceans makes it somewhat more impractical for shared resources like that.
The Australians have a 737 that gets across the Pacific easily.
They were in California last season https://youtu.be/e6VB6FiJowE
Huh, well today I learned. Thanks!
For the helicopters you can put them on cargo ships and then it is cheap as heck.
For the fixed wing aircraft, I don't know is two cross hemisphere flights a year really more carbon footprint than two identical fleets of highly expensive materially intensive aircraft?
I don't know.... maybe but I kind of doubt it since if I wanted to buy an airplane it would be much cheaper to buy it from the otherside of the world premade than attempt to build it myself... so?
I think it is an interesting question to ponder is what I am saying.
I didn’t even think of the helicopters, but yes, that transport is relatively easy. My experience is tangentially related to the fixed wing jet tankers.
I think that firefighting activity stresses airframes more than usual as well, so I was also estimating from that maintenance side.
I figure that it could be done, generally, but timelines would probably be tight and costs could escalate quickly, both financially and environmentally.
How long does a cargo ship take to get between Australia and Europe or the North American west coast? I imagine it’d be a few weeks at least to LA, and longer to, say, Piraeus or Marseille via the Suez Canal, during which you hope neither side needs those helicopters.
Sure but that doesn't seem like a dealbreaker, definitely a drawback though.
The fire would be out by the time a ship arrives. I think they'd just put the helicopters onto planes. The air force has planes for that.
Too far away.
If canada needs more, they can build, or buy more, or are they too busy building oil pipelines?
Than why is it cheaper and more advisable to buy an airplane built on the other side of the world (legal complications aside for a moment) than build one yourself?
If in Canada, I doubt that is the case.
In Australia... we are on the other side of the planet to the majority.