Air Ops

[Firefrog]

CFS as part of its succession planning and strategy for aerial fire operations is conducting an air observer course from October 8 -12 2007.  CFS needs to develop people in this role to ensure there is scope for developing these people as future air attack supervisors for fire bomber coordination, and incident management team members supporting air operations.

What I am asking of you is to consider if you interested in this role or whether you know someone in your field of work, willing to undertake this role for CFS as either a volunteer or a staff member.  CFS Regions, this is an opportunity to develop regionally based air observers, so think who maybe suitable and ask if they would like to participate.

An Air Observer provides a critical function for the gathering and dissemination of bushfire intelligence.  The Air Observer assimilates what is happening on the ground in terms of fire behaviour and relates this to mapping information.  The Air Observer also describes the bushfire hazards, the rates of fire spread  and describes what the community or environmental threats are from a fire.  The Air Observer transmits this either verbally via radio, or visually through the production of accurate maps using GPS and other computer based devices.  The ability to gather this into timely and accurate intelligence is crucial for CFS to successfully provide bushfire warnings to the community and the media.

The role can be arduous and difficult and requires an ongoing commitment for a number of years to develop the skills and capacity for this highly specialised role.

Consequently CFS will create a list of nominees for the course and determine whether against selection criteria, they will be suitable for participation in the role.  I will develop and circulate this criteria to nominations I receive.

Conditions, knowledge skills and abilities that will be considered during our selection process will include:

fire behaviour knowledge and experience
experience in flying in hot and turbulent conditions with minimal motion sickness
map reading experience
Incident management team experience
computer literacy
radio communications experience
ability to regularly participate on an on-call roster for CFS throughout the summer bushfire season
willingness to fly in both small fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft
A commitment to the program for air operations for a number of years.
 

As part of the fire authorities national network of aviation specialists, CFS maybe able to offer a couple of spaces to interstate fire agencies dependent on the number of suitable nominees, so I would welcome nominations from interstate colleagues.

Feel free to call me if you have any queries on the number below.  I have included a nomination form for interested applicants.

David Cant
Manager Aviation Services
SA Country Fire Service

We came across this recently - could be of interest.