Taree Airport NSW Rural Fire Service Airbase 2020 fires

This week’s blog looks back 12 months to the Taree Airport NSW Rural Fire Service Airbase, at the peak of the fires, there were 24 helicopters & 4 fixed-wing bombers. Here is a list of the aircraft photographed during that time.

Sydney Helicopters

Firebird 231, VH-BLR
Helitak 276, VH-JWO

Heli-Central

Firebird 260, VH-ZHM

Heli-Surveys

Firebird 296, VH-ZMH

Helitrek

Helitak 227, VH-FHD
Helitak 225, VH-FHB

Kestrel Aviation

Helitak 330, VH-NSY
Helitak 333, VH-KHO
Helitak 739, N247AC (Erickson Air-Crane “JERRY”)

Microflite Helicopter Services

Firebird 286, VH-YJB
Helitak 338, VH-JJR
Firebird 303, VH-ZHS
Firebird 208, VH-XXM

Wildcat Helicopters

Helitak 274, C-FWTQ

Touchdown Helicopters

Helitak 229, VH-OXI
Firebird 224, VH-AGL

Valhalla Helicopters

Helitak 251, C-GIUP
Helitak 252, C-FPSZ

NSW RFS/Careflight

Firebird 200, VH-NFO
Helitak 201, VH-VRP

Precision Helicopters

Firebird 297, VH-ANC

Skyline Aviation

Firebird 285, VH-EGJ

Calibre Aviation

Firebird 424, VH-WEB

Fleet Helicopters

Firebird 210, VH-JOW

These helicopters were all in attendance of the NSW RFS Section 44 fires that were burning out of control in the Forster/Tuncurry, Taree, Harrington & Port Macquarie areas.

A “Section 44” refers to the New South Wales Rural Fires Act 1997, specifically section 44, Commissioner’s responsibility. It essentially means that the Rural Fire Service Commissioner declares a localised “State of Emergency” for a specific district suffering severe fire conditions that cannot be managed without drawing in extensive resources from other areas.

Once declared by the Commissioner the district has access to any and all fire-fighting personnel/equipment from across the State at no cost to the district or RFS, with the State Government footing the bill of all related Section 44 declared operations.

A couple of weeks after taking these photos, Helitak 229, VH-OXI suffered a driveshaft failure whilst undertaking water bombing tasks. This failure resulted in a very hard landing where VH-OXI sustained substantial damage.