VICTORIA'S night fire bombing trial has been awarded a prestigious international honour for its pioneering work in keeping the community safe during bushfires.
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The Walt Darran Award was jointly presented to Kestrel Aviation of Australia, Coulson Aviation of Canada and Emergency Management Victoria's Wayne Rigg for ground breaking, collaborative work in developing safe and effective practices for aerial firefighting at night at a ceremony this month in France
Mr Rigg, who is based in Ballarat, said he was honoured to accept the award on behalf of everyone involved in the trial.
To be recgonised in what we've done through this trial is a great honour and an indication on how collaboratively you can work with industry and agencies to innovate," he said.
"My passion is about protecting communities and firefighters on the ground, we have to look all the time at how we can provide better tools to protect these people.
"I didn't know we were nominated. It was only a week before that I received notification to see if we would accept it. You don't do it for awards, but it was a welcome surprise."
The award is named after aviation pioneer Walt Darran who over his 48-year professional pilot career achieved 17 type ratings and flew 25,000 hours with 1500 hours on helicopters.
Mr Rigg said it was clear that night fire bombing is "absolutely viable",
"It's achievable and can be done safely," he said. "I've been involved in aerial firefighting for 15 years and this is all about timing, it was a natural progression.
"All states and territories take a leadership role in aerial firefighting, this was the Victorian government's step. It's been done successfully in North America successfully for a long time.
"The partnership from the LA county air operations has been instrumental. One of their senior pilots by the name of Eric Pacheco has been mentoring me all the way. He has been a rock for me and the project.
"What we've done is taking a model that's successful and adapted it to Australian conditions."
READ MORE: Fire bombing after dark gets green light
Mr Rigg said the future was about collecting data and hopefully seeing the capability implemented throughout the country.
"We now need to look at whether and how the government and agencies want the capability," he said
"Once they make that decision, we then need to look at a strategic capability plan for a roll out in a timely manner. You've got to understand at the moment there's not a big supply of night time pilots, so you need to form a realistic plan.
"The next step will be to look at doing trials with large air tankers at night, that's on our radar and hopefully most likely around the Ballarat again. There's also the emergence of ex-military vehicles which might be able to be used going forward."
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