Code Red, Red, Red.

The tension is so great the drum is about to break, but let's keep beating it anyway. Feel free to join!

Code Red, Red, Red. Bushfires, death, destruction, pollution and global warming continues. In 2019-20 in Australia alone, 10 billions of dollars lost and continuing to climb. Add to this the costs occurring even as I write today from countries around the world, Canada, Turkey, Greece, Russia and in California and South America.

In fire service parlance, Code Red means, 'transmitting a message considered to be life critical in nature, and is an interruption device indicating that this message has priority over all other messages and, that all other messaging is to cease until this message has been transmitted, received, understood, and acknowledged. It is of such urgency that it needs to be actioned immediately'.

The key role of all government is to provide safety and security for its people. Global warming, irrespective of ongoing debate about its cause, makes a nations people less safe e.g., famines, floods and fires etc and, due to the potential for this issue to increase tensions between nations, and a nation’s desire to survive due to its perceived national self-interest and self-preservation requirement, global security risks will also therefore increase. Failure to provide for these two key elements of on the one hand internal safety, and on the other hand an external security threat, places people now and into the future at greater risk, but also causes governments to fail.

How do we deal with this critical issue? A major contributing factor to global warming as outlined in the latest UN - Global Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, titled – Code Red, is the increasing amount of Co2 and pollutants placed into the atmosphere with vast amounts of these contributors emitted during bushfires. Bushfires in their duration, severity, intensity and destructive power are on the increase, as is their contribution to global warming. Of this there is no longer any doubt!

It is also clear that if collective international action can be taken right now bushfires can be stopped in their tracks by being contained in size and easily managed as a small fire. By this I mean, never having an out-of-control unwanted bushfire, ever again, grow beyond the size of approximately 10m3, anywhere in the world. ?This can be done by 2030, the end of this decade, and if immediate collective international action can be taken as quick as possible, even within half that time, by 2025. Why do I say this? Because it’s true!

True that collectively, internationally, we already have vast amounts of technological expertise and equipment available that can be bought to bear on the problem. Also true because human beings when motivated to achieve both great and terrible things, do so, for example, landing a man on the moon and bringing him back to earth again safely - done within a decade or, the Manhattan Project creating and unleashing the massive destructive power of the atomic bomb, started in 1939 and ramped up between 1942 and 1945, done within 4 years.

When power and political will align, ideas can change from potential to reality.

On 11 September 2019, I wrote to the Prime Minister of Australia and asked him to convene a national summit to better prepare for and respond to fires in the 2019-2020 bushfire season. I again wrote to him in 2020. I now ask our Prime Minister to write to all other world leaders and ask for an international summit to be convened to propose and establish a clear goal to, eradicate by the end of this decade the onset impact and consequences of unwanted and uncontrolled fire. If our Prime Minister doesn’t, I ask that one of the leaders of the G20 does. I am suggesting there are four key components to achieving the goal, established as four separate but interconnected international projects.

Project 1????????To discover the inner workings of fire, to better understand the physics, the?chemistry and the quantum mechanics of fire and to find the switch that turns it off. Establish at an international level input and collaboration with an array of scientists across a wide range of scientific expertise, wider than currently exists in any international collaborative effort. Purpose - to investigate the science and mechanism of fire. This would involve the current scientific fire fields of chemistry and physics but also include many scientists outside of those direct fields including but not limited to, for example and if appropriate, atmospheric chemists, computational chemists, electrochemists, nuclear chemists, physical chemists, quantum chemists, agro chemists, theoretical chemists and thermo chemists.?Also involved would be atomic physicists, and chemical physicists along with mathematicians, systems scientists, computational scientists, military scientists and industrial and applied scientists.

?Project 2?????????Undertake a radical review of current and alternative extinguishing mediums that can be used once delivered into the fire zone, e.g. A return to Bromo-chloro-difluro-methane (BCF) or similar halon like extinguishing medium such as those that encapsulate the free radicals in the fire zone and remove the chain carriers that enable the chemical reaction of fire to continue. Explore the use of various ‘chain carrier removers’ added to water delivered via fire streams to be investigated and trialled. A growing number of potentially suitable products already existing or are coming onto the market for this purpose. Research further into the field of water considering recent scientific discoveries regarding the 4th state of water and the potentially altered molecular structure of H2o beneath the surface of the earth. Although water is still an immensely viable product to use on fire due to its high thermal capacity, the way in which it is delivered onto the fire zone may also need to be radically reviewed, but nevertheless water should continue to be one of a range of a range of products that can be used.

?Project 3???????To radically change the way in which we attack a fire, how we deliver an extinguishing medium to the fire and how we deliver it into the fire zone including the use of adapted military machinery. In particular the use of military type ground and air attack systems is proposed for exploration and development. It is suggested that the following should be considered, (i) the use of rocket fired mine sweeping systems trialled to break up or even extinguish a fire front. The use of Blackhawk helicopters (or other similar aircraft) and their flight systems used to deliver, through their armament systems, a specifically designed extinguishing medium onto the fire. An example would be using its rockets and various calibre ammunition, containing new forms of extinguishing product, to fire directly in front of, into, or under the flame zone, or even into the ground areas before or under the flame zone. For larger fires this may also include one or more rotary or fixed wing aircraft, flying in formation, strafing across a fire front and using the explosive force of their firing to break up the fire zone area.

Water, still being the main firefighting medium, is currently delivered to the fire zone by the use of mobile ground fire appliances of various types (carrying it from one point to another where it is then applied onto the fire zone via hose lines) or, secondly, taken to the fire ground via rotary or fixed wing aircraft of various sizes and capacity and then being dropped onto the fire or fire line. A current limitation of these delivery systems is that by the time many of last fire season’s major fires where impinging on, or close to over-running human, animal and property locations, the amount of water, including with the inclusion of fire retardants, gels and foams e.g. being able to be dropped onto the fire zone via hose-lines, hand pumps, Bambi buckets or scoop and drop water from fixed wing aircraft, is often insufficient and ineffective. This is due to the severity of the fires being faced. Providing more of these types of delivery systems for water is currently necessary, but not sufficient. Project (3) therefore would explore new ways to take new extinguishing medium to the fire ground and deliver it in new ways into the fire zone.

?This project should include relevant international military experts in ground and air warfare delivery systems, various engineering fields, and, at least from Australia, representatives from the Australasian Fire & Emergency Services Authorities Council (AFAC), the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNH-CRC), Fire Protection industry organisations e.g. the Fire Protection Association of Australia and others.

?Project 4 There is already much technology being used or can be used in the fight against fire, but there is much more that can and should be done. Collectively, internationally, we already have vast amounts of technological expertise and equipment available that can be bought to bear on the problem and if inspired and motivated, the collective energy and wisdom to create much more. The use of both military and civilian satellites needs to be investigated. The use of drone technology to both respond to, observe and attack fires needs to be researched (including the use of ‘tree planting type bullets fired from drones or other aircraft into the ground’, in front of, or into the fire zone, this technology currently exists). The use of augmented reality combined with artificial intelligence to better inform response activities. These, and many other IT applications, including machine learning need to be used and coordinated at the international, national, state and local levels. Strategies, tactics, techniques, protocols and reporting need to be better established and implemented. To discover new and coordinate currently available technology for the detection of a point of origin of the fire, the location and delineation of its immediate boundary and its projected direction and perimeter development. To also be able to establish the potential location of and immediate threat to any form of animal or human life. To then immediately establish and direct the weight of appropriate available resources, including by satellite and drone technology. And then to extinguish or control the fire and be able to potentially to do so within one hour of its detection, regardless of geographic point of fire location.

?Australia has now had its Royal Commission, the report into the National Natural Disaster Arrangements (NNDA) with some 82 recommendations. This report follows on from some 18 previous major reports regarding Australian bushfires. Undoubtedly there will be and ought to be major investigations and reports into each of the fires in Canada, Turkey, Greece, Russia and in California and South America. The Australian NNDA report stated, “the Australian public expect greater Australian Government action with a clearer national role. Particularly so given it has at its disposal valuable capabilities and capacity, including those provided by the Australian Defence Force (ADF)”. I would anticipate and expect, if not already the case, that other countries currently experiencing devastating bushfires will make the same or a similar statements. This being the case, it is clear that a major international effort working collaboratively across all governments, including the engagement, through application of private enterprise.

?To quote Angus Dorney (CoCEO)of Kablamo in his recent article published in Business IT (BIT),?“Fires cross borders with ease, and so should the technology informing each state’s emergency services” https://www.bit.com.au/news/from-floods-to-fire-wheres-the-war-footing-approach-for-bushfire-565844?. In this article he refers to state borders within the country of Australia, I don't think he would disagree with me that, ‘the bushfire issue crosses all borders (national and international) and so therefore should the technology informing each country’s fight to overcome the increasing risk internally from bushfires and, the global fight to end out of control bushfires that so significantly contribute to global warming.

?The latin phrase ‘Ignis est servus non dominus’ – Fire is the servant not the master, is a term used by many fire services and other emergency services around the world, it is time to make this phrase a reality by implementing the international goal of- eradicating by the end of this decade the onset, impact and consequences of unwanted uncontrolled fire.