MELBOURNE – As much of Los Angeles County burned in flames this month and U.S. fire officials scrambled to coordinate aid from overseas, a longtime fire partner was left off their list: Australia.
Both Mexico and Canada sent personnel and equipment to the front, and the Australian government publicly offered assistance as part of a longstanding agreement with the United States.
But U.S. officials never requested this.
They knew Australia was already grappling with a problem heading into its own wildfire season recent fire in Victoria state burned more than 187,800 acres and took 21 days to contain.
“Requests for international assistance are typically sent first to countries with the least number of wildfires, as they are more likely to be able to send firefighters and equipment,” said Erin McDuff, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Wildfires the US Department of the Interior.
“Australia in particular has recently experienced numerous severe forest fires, testing available firefighting resources.”
But the lack of Australian help in two cases most devastating fires in California's history speaks to the increasing fragility of such international agreements in the age of climate change.
It has been for more than 20 years agreement Cooperation between the United States and Australia is based on a simple principle: Because the two countries are in opposite hemispheres, fire seasons have historically been asynchronous, allowing the side with less fire activity to send firefighting personnel or equipment to the other side.
But climate change is Extension of the fire season around the world, stretching existing resources. Many now fear that the system of cooperation is in danger of crumbling.
“Resource sharing agreements are becoming increasingly important as countries experience ongoing outbreaks of extreme wildfires,” said Rick McRae, a wildfire management expert at the University of New South Wales Canberra.
“But if you look at California alone, there's just a continuous series of bad events,” he said. “The usual concept of fire seasons had to be abandoned.”
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Would more help from Australia have made a difference?
Some experts said the sheer intensity and speed of the fires made it pointless to simply throw more people and equipment into the mix. Although more than 10,000 firefighters battled the flames, ground crews in LA said they were overwhelmed, and planes spraying fire retardant were often paralyzed by the wind.
“If we had had 100 tankers there, would that have made a difference? I don't know. Maybe not,” said Joel Kerley, chief executive of 10 Tanker, an Albuquerque-based aerial firefighting company contracted by the U.S. Forest Service to fight fires in the Los Angeles area.
“But I’ve gotten to the point where you have to try. We’re getting our asses kicked by these fires and something has to change.”
Hector Cerna, 39, of Palmdale, works to clear trouble spots in the Alpine National Park in the Australian state of Victoria on January 18, 2020. The US sent firefighters to help fight fires in Australia as part of a mutual aid agreement between the two countries.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Kerley knows what a difference international aid can make.
A former aviation manager in the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs, he was one of them 200 federal firefighters The United States sent Australia to help during a catastrophic series of bushfires known as the Black Summer five years ago.
It was the traditional offseason for wildfires in the western United States, and emergency responders were returning the favor from two years earlier when Australia and New Zealand sent more than 138 people to fight fires in Northern California in August.
The black summer is burning burned through 60 million hectares, destroying over 2,700 homes and killing at least 34 people. Kerley reached his peak in December 2020 and found that his Australian colleagues, most of whom were volunteers, were barely hanging on.
“None of them had days off,” he said. “They were exhausted and we just gave them relief so they could get some rest.”
It was a prime example of the US-Australia agreement working as intended. But the LA fires have upended this model of seasonal exchange, with detrimental effects in other countries as well.
Most of Kerley's DC-10s are typically serviced during the winter, with one or two available to respond to requests from South America. This week he is holding talks with Argentina and Ecuadorwho are fighting severe forest fires, but he already knows he has to turn them down.
“The international competition for resources that is currently taking place is a real problem that needs to be addressed,” he said.
“There just isn’t enough for everyone.”
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This realization has already taken hold in Australia.
A royal commission was launched in October 2020 in the wake of Black Summer recommended that the country builds its own fleet of firefighting aircraft.
“The severity of the 2019-2020 bushfires highlighted the difficulties of sourcing additional aircraft from overseas at short notice,” the report says, noting that almost all of the large air tankers used in those fires were hired from overseas be.
“The use of firefighting aircraft based in the Northern Hemisphere is becoming increasingly problematic as the bushfire season expands in both hemispheres, making it difficult to draw on additional resources from overseas.”
Many now say it's time for the U.S. to stop relying on foreign aid and treat firefighting as seasonal work.
“The U.S. wildland firefighting workforce was largely seasonal,” said Robin Wills, who recently retired as chief of fire and aviation for the National Park Service’s Pacific West region. “Many important firefighting forces, such as federal hand crews and aviation forces, are not staffed in the winter.”
He said it's clear this system is outdated as the wildfire season grows longer due to a warming climate.
“Firefighters now typically work 1,000 hours of overtime through September,” he said. “My teams were away from home for 90 to 100 days. These firefighters need rest and recovery and are unlikely to be available to respond to major fires in January.”
A contingent of American firefighters meets for a briefing before departing for their mission on January 18, 2020. They have teamed up with Australian colleagues to fight the flames in the Alpine National Park.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
These problems are exacerbated by staff cuts at federal agencies such as the Forest Service and the Interior Department, which together employ the most firefighters in the country.
According to ProPublica, the U.S. Forest Service recently lost 45% of its permanent employees over a three-year period reported last year and attributed the decline to low wages and difficult working conditions. Despite federal efforts to shift to a more permanent, year-round workforce, some are leaving to take better-paying jobs in the United States private fire service industry.
The situation is particularly dire in California: The state's fire chiefs said many forestry stations there are sitting empty because there is no one to oversee them, according to The Times reported last year.
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Although L.A. firefighters are making progress, Kerley of 10 Tankers said the response there has not been sustained.
“It puts pilots in an unsafe position,” he said.
After three months of not flying, his pilots were suddenly sent to the so-called “Super Bowl” of aerial firefighting, where they had to contend with 40 mph crosswinds at a time when they would normally be faced with would begin training for annual recertification. He said some had told him it was “one of the most difficult flights they have ever done in their careers.”
“Firefighting needs to be a year-round job and a professional organization, just like the U.S. military,” Kerley said. “We want 365 days coverage. So what does that look like? How much will that cost? How do we do that? That’s the first question you have to ask.”
Could the LA fires be America's black summer – the wake-up call he thinks the US desperately needs?
Kerley hopes so.
“If this isn’t the Pearl Harbor moment of wildfire suppression, I don’t know what is,” he said.
Times staff writer Kim reported from Seoul and special correspondent Petrakis reported from Melbourne, Australia.