Vicfreg 771 Report post Posted January 8, 2020 I know we have quite a few friends and forum members down under. Hoping and praying that you and families and friends are safe from the fires we have all see on the news here. If there are things that you urgently need, post that here, and will try to get some assistance to you somehow. Vic 1 bigmal reacted to this Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Hux 45 Report post Posted January 8, 2020 6 minutes ago, Vicfreg said: I know we have quite a few friends and forum members down under. Hoping and praying that you and families and friends are safe from the fires we have all see on the news here. If there are things that you urgently need, post that here, and will try to get some assistance to you somehow. Vic Thanks Vic, there are some parts that are doing it tough but the nation is rallying behind them with massive community support. There is some really amazing stories of kindness that reminds us that decent human behaviour is the norm and we shouldn’t be completely jaded by what we see on the nightly news reports normally. 1 bigmal reacted to this Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Vicfreg 771 Report post Posted January 8, 2020 Hux, know it a huge country (continent), the news makes it look like the whole place is aflame. Be safe. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JET 445 43 Report post Posted January 8, 2020 Thanks for the kind words Vic, a lot of people don't realize it but most of Australia is a barren wasteland with just a narrow green belt around the perimeter, combine this with possibly the worst drought we have ever had and blazing summer heat and you have a recipe for disaster. Large parts of the country have had no significant rain for 6-8 years with none forecast any time soon so the fires will continue for a while yet. It may look like the whole place is on fire but it's not quite that bad, but with 1,000 houses burnt so far it is very serious. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
smh00n 87 Report post Posted January 25, 2020 Bad news on the fires here. A Canadian C130 Hercules with a USA crew crashed on Thursday 23 with no survivors in the 3 man crew. Pretty shocking, we've had helicopters and fixed wings crash but nothing this size. At this stage nothing is known why it went down. I am part of fire aviation and the flight trace looked normal until it went down. It dropped retardant for 2 seconds just before we lost sight of it. We have had a lot of US and Canadian aviation people over this year and they have been some of the best people we work with. Their level of expertise is very high and they all hit the ground running. They found that the word 'mate' has many variations from positive to negative but can be used in every social situation. It's bad enough to loose people in fires, worse still when they are miles from home and away from family helping out strangers. RIP B134 and thanks. 1 1 Shep69 and 3Katz reacted to this Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Vicfreg 771 Report post Posted January 26, 2020 Yes, sad indeed. I am working in Canada right now, this was heavily covered in the news. The plane was operated by Coulson Aviation a well known worldwide aircraft firefighting business. They had loaned the plane to the RFS for these fires. 1 Shep69 reacted to this Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bigmal 225 Report post Posted January 31, 2020 Very sad indeed. It will be interesting to find out the cause. A very experienced crew. There has been a lot of press on this accident and a lot of focus on the fact that they are here to help us. It has not gone unappreciated. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Vicfreg 771 Report post Posted February 4, 2020 Right. Dangerous job, comes with extreme risk. Our first responders, police and firefighters do this every day. Big thanks to them. 1 bigmal reacted to this Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
