Smoke on the skyline, water on the fire

This is the nature of his job.

When duty — and burning nature — calls, he answers. And quickly.

Mr Fullerton flies a firefighting Airbus H125 single-engine helicopter, nicknamed a ‘squirrel’, for Microflite during the fire danger season each year.

His time on the roster has been split between Shepparton and Canberra for the past two seasons, which start late in November and usually end late in February, depending on the season’s intensity.

He works 10 days at one base, has five days off, then 10 days at the next, has five days off, and then repeats the routine.

The change of scenery keeps the job interesting despite having to stay put at his accommodation near the airport most work days simply waiting for an emergency call that requires him to have his aircraft airborne within 15 minutes.

When on duty — between 10am and 6pm on regular working days and 9am and 7pm on Total Fire Ban days — he fills his in-between time watching TV and playing his bass guitar.

This season in the Northern Country fire district has, so far, been mild.

Touch wood. (But avoid setting it alight.)

It’s halfway through summer and Mr Fullerton has dropped water only once, on a fire in the Barmah National Park, that he collected from the Murray River.

His colleagues, a few more times.

“There’s maybe half a dozen fires we’ve dropped water on this season,” Mr Fullerton said.

“We’ll get airborne quite a lot, but then we’ll get cancelled on the way.

“That’ll happen more often than not. The ground units will arrive on site and they’ll have the fire under control before we get there. That happens probably two or three times on a 10-day shift.”

The well-practised pilot has loved helicopters since he was a child.

He recalls watching Skippy and M*A*S*H and says the aircraft on TV fascinated him.

“It was always going to be aviation for me,” Mr Fullerton said.

He’s worked for Microflite since 2016 and has been fighting fire from the sky since 2018.

For the same company, he spends the winter months transporting passengers, completing air work tasks (such as filming and photography), taking tourists on scenic flights to places such as the Yarra Valley from Melbourne, and brushing up on what he said were perishable fire zone flying skills to keep him sharp between seasons.

“I find it very rewarding and good fun,” he said.

Before joining Microflite’s Melbourne staff in the city where he now lives, Adelaide-born Mr Fullerton flew for a tour operator at Hamilton Island.

With no on-ground firefighting experience to inspire him, he said fighting fires was not something every pilot aspired to branch into.

It can be tricky for a whole other set of reasons than regular flying is.

“In summer, it’s really hot and you’re trying to carry as much water as possible, you’re flying at low levels, so there’s lots of risks involved when you are really busy and there’s a lot going on,” Mr Fullerton said.

“You’re looking at things like the amount of power you’re using, that you’ve got the power in reserve to get out of any tricky situations that may crop up when you’re picking up water and trying to manoeuvre and put it on the fire.

“It’s good, it’s challenging.”

The chopper, which is powered by a gas turbine engine and runs on jet fuel, has a 1000-litre water tank.

To fill it, the pilot drops the tank while hovering above a water source — be that an irrigation channel, farm dam, picturesque lake, or flowing river — where a snorkel that hangs below it sucks up the liquid, aided by an electric pump at its end.

A bag fills up, the pilot flies above the fire that needs extinguishing and opens the hydraulic doors underneath the bag so the water drops on to the flames.

Sometimes a foam mixture is added to the water.

The chopper can travel long distances with a full water tank, but it’s restrictive to the airspeed, so Mr Fullerton said it was best to fill up close to where the fire was rather than at the flying base.

If the helicopter hasn’t been flown for a week, pilots must take it up to ensure everything is still in working order.

“After seven days we’ll just do a systems check,” Mr Fullerton said.

“So we’ll pick up some water from the poly tank and then drop it again and then land just to make sure everything’s still working so there’s no surprises if we do get a call out.”

For someone whose passion for flying is written all over him, staying grounded that long while on the clock in fire season must be trying.

I had to know if it was tempting for Mr Fullerton to keep flying off into the sunset during those brief test flights.

“Yeah, absolutely, especially when you’re not doing a lot,” he said with a grin.

“You look forward to that seven-day flight.”