Second contingent of NZ firefighters heading to Australia

A second contingent of New Zealand firefighters will fly to Australia this Wednesday to help contain the bushfires in the state of Victoria, says the Minister responsible for New Zealand's fire services Richard Worth.

A team of 57 firefighters, crew leaders and Incident Management team members will depart from Whenuapai Air Force Base in Auckland on Wednesday afternoon.  The New Zealand Defence Force will provide air transport to Melbourne in an Air Force Hercules.

The firefighters will be farewelled on behalf of the Government by the Minister of Civil Defence John Carter.

The team will be deployed in Australia until the end of March.  In the meantime, 16 of the 53 firefighters from the first contingent will stay on for another week. 

A Liaison Officer from the National Rural Fire Authority and a Bushfire Research Scientist from SCION in Christchurch will also remain in Australia.

The returning firefighters will come back via Hercules on Thursday [5 March].  They have been based in Wesburn, 62 kilometres east of Melbourne and have been concentrating their efforts on establishing and containing wildfire lines in the Melbourne water catchment areas in Kilmore East Murrindindi region.

New Zealand's National Rural Fire Officer Murray Dudfield said arrangements for the departure of the second contingent had been made following a formal second request for assistance from Australia.

An agreement of mutual support exists between the Victoria Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) and the New Zealand National Rural Fire Authority to help each other with wildfire suppression and other fire management activities.

Mr Dudfield said the firefighting contingent had been selected for their remote high country and forestry firefighting experience.  They will be required to walk into the remote wildfires in forested lands which will involve dry firefighting with hand tools and machinery, along with backburning tasks.