Coordinating emergency responses
With multiple agency bodies involved in combating the ever-present threat of bushfires, the ability to have a shared view of a fast-moving emergency situation and the resources available is essential to a well-formed response. NAFC plays a key role by managing the sharing of aerial firefighting resources between emergency service and land management agencies throughout Australia. They are also essential to the development of national protocols and systems for aerial firefighting, including one they built themselves called ARENA. ARENA is a software solution to register how many firefighting aircraft there are in Australia and New Zealand. It is not only a registry, but also a complex aircraft management and awareness system. At any point in time, users can locate an aircraft, review its details, register whether it’s approved to work, whether it has a contract, and other crucial information. The states and territories can use this information to find the right aircraft at the right time, with the right capabilities and the right contract, and then dispatch it to a job. They can also manage and track what it’s doing on that job, where it’s picking up water and where it’s dropping water. At the end of the engagement, ARENA can produce a document that summarizes what the aircraft did, which gets turned into an invoice to be paid.
Ensuring all aircraft meet contracts and standards with the Mitti Platform
National contracts ensure that every aircraft in the NAFC fleet meets their terms and conditions, standards, and expectations. Every aircraft has the same standard features such as requirements for seatbelts, or flashing anti-collision lights, so a firefighting aircraft is recognised as a fit-for-purpose firefighting aircraft regardless of what state it’s in.
Working with the Mitti Platform allowed NAFC to achieve collaboration and compliance across many complex, inter-jurisdictional, inter-agency relationships. By housing all checks and audits in a single platform, NAFC was able to create the opportunity for national consistency through collaboration on national templates.
Previously, checks were done on pen and paper, or in static documents, but using Mitti (by SafetyCulture) ensures NAFC has common standards across the different states and territories, and a higher quality fleet ready for firefighting. Aircraft are checked before they go into service for firefighting by the operator in spring or early summer, and then again by the fire authority for compliance. There are also the ad hoc checks when issues arise, and location checks of airbases and helipads to make sure they are safe.
