Aviation firefighter crews operating out of Busselton Margaret River Airport enjoying South West life

Lt-Col Dawn Blumberg’s high-flying career has brought her all the way from the US to WA to help battle out-of-control bushfires. She is an instructor pilot with the Montana Air National Guard and is qualified to operate and command the Large Air Tanker C-130H firefighting aircraft, that is currently based in Busselton. For the summer months during her active shifts, Mrs Blumberg will be on standby with her crew for about eight hours a day, seven days a week for 18 days at a time. In the event of a callout, the team can be airborne and ready to support firefighters on the ground in as little as 15 minutes. In a packed career flying US military and commercial firefighting aircraft, Mrs Blumberg has amassed about 3500 hours flying various planes including the Boeing 737 LAT and the C-130H. Her husband Chris, and children Ruby, 3, and Florian, 5, have made the epic trip to Western Australia twice to keep the family together during Mrs Blumberg’s firefighting work in Western Australia. “Busselton is such a fantastic place to bring the family, my children love it, it’s so special, and great to be here all together. “The Australian parks are so cool, and really cleverly designed to keep the children occupied. “I am bit concerned that your beautiful ocean is a bit too ‘sharky’ for us.” Mrs Blumberg explained how the Coulson LAT aircraft are used to support firefighters on the ground. In preparation for dropping the retardant the aircraft will descend to a height of about 60m, and settle on a speed of about 240km/h, or 130 knots. The pilot then carefully lines up with the drop area as directed by the ground fire crews. There is no special instrumentation in the cockpit for helping to aim the retardant. “Dropping the retardant in the right place is all mark one eyeball,” Mrs Blumberg said. The crews have previously been hampered by irresponsible behaviour in bushfire zones, especially with the illegal operation of drones. “At a fire south of Lancelin as we prepared to make the first pass, we were forced to hold off of the fire for 90 minutes, due to a drone operating in the area,” Mrs Blumberg said. “This is was frustrating because we are not able to support the crews on the ground.” “The role of the air tankers is to slow the progress of the fires, so the ground crews can take control of the fire. “When drones are operating, we can’t slow the fire, and the impact can be enormous, it really is stupid,” he said. Coulson Aviation is a specialist US based company that recently signed a five year firefighting contract with Western Australian Government for their LAT aircraft. The Coulson Aviation aircraft and crews will remain in Australia for the duration of the bushfire season. Although they are based in Busselton, they can be relocated interstate when required.