CREW PROTECTION
ENGINEERING A SAFER CREW PROTECTION SYSTEM By Andrew Webb and Andy Gooden
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wildfire
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OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2020
Burn-over crew protection systems have been installed into fleets of rural wildland Fire-Fighting Vehicles (FFVs) in parts of Australia, successfully providing protection for crews in recent large fires. Research out of the Country Fire Authority (CFA) in Victoria is leading the change in vehicles carrying more than 1000 litres of water. These systems, and underlying engineering design principles, are robust and have remained largely unchanged since first introduced as standard fitment in Victoria in the mid 2000’s. Where utilized there have been no recorded firefighter deaths, and only minor injury, from burn-overs. Most notably during the Victorian Black Saturday bushfires in February 2009 hundreds of FFVs were involved in firefighting operations with eight involved in significant burnover situations and a further 18 directly impacted by fire. In the recent 2019-20 bushfires in New South Wales and Victoria that burnt out of control for many months the same result occurred – multiple burn-overs without deaths or significant injuries. Principal engineering features, described in detail online [https://www.iawfonline.org/wildfiremagazine], form part of the overall layered approach as described in Wildfire magazine, (March-April 2017, p 28-30 “Developing and Testing a Tanker/ Engine Crew Protection System”, D Nichols, CFA Manager of Research and Development).
