Back at Yebra’s centre, the team’s work is particularly timely with weather forecasters predicting a super El Nino this summer – which could increase the probability of extreme heat, drought and bushfires.
“Our next fire season is looking like it’s going to be a bad one,” Yebra says.
That concern is shared by Jason Heffernan, chief officer of the Country Fire Authority in Australia’s southeastern state of Victoria. Here, the memories of 2009’s Black Saturday bushfires – the country’s deadliest on record – loom large.
“For this summer coming, we’re bracing for what could be something extremely significant,” Heffernan says.
Even in the broader scheme of things, he notes that local fire seasons are starting earlier and lasting longer. “Unfortunately for Australia”, he adds, “our environment is designed to burn.”
But as the world braces for wildfires that are more frequent and intense, Heffernan also believes “we must take a global perspective”.
“No fire service can do this on their own and the key is to have formal and trusted networks,” he says – as well as national and international resource-sharing arrangements.
One of the challenges as a fire chief, he explains, is knowing when to ask for help – too late and the benefits will be lost, but too early and resources might be wasted.
Such a call was made just earlier this week, when France sent its first-ever request for help from Australian firefighters. Two dozen crew and several aircraft will be deployed as France battles record-breaking wildfires amid a prolonged summer heatwave.
Australia regularly sends specialist teams to the US and Canada, and vice versa, with many requests for what’s known as “arduous fire crews”: those who have fought fires in rugged and remote areas.
There are far fewer requests from Europe, Heffernan says – but this may change as “the global fire community is becoming more connected”.
As he points out, while forests and climates vary across the globe, “we’re seeing bushfires occur in parts of the world that never had bushfires before”.
