Used for planned burning operationsVehicle mounter flame thrower. Developed at Altona workshopsforests commission victoria (fcv), planned burning, bushfire, hand tools

The Forests Commission developed the use of helicopters for aerial ignition from the mid 1960s. Bryant and May at Richmond worked with the Commission to develop a Delayed Action Incendiary Device. DAIDs as the were known, had an overall length of 180 mm, striker end length - 10 mm. Ignition end length - 80 mm, then a layer of high melting point wax (to prevent accidental ignition when rubbing together in transit). Both ends coated with a modified match head compound with safety fuse exposed length between coated match ends. There was a 17-second delay from when the small end was struck to an intense flaming of the large end, which lasted for 40 seconds. DAIDs were dangerous so were stored in a metal box outside the helicopter along with a disposable striker patch attached with a quick release pin to a special half-door. The first test was with a Bell 47G on 4 October 1967 and the first use, anywhere in the world, of DAIDs to backburn a large bushfire was undertaken in north eastern Victoria in February 1968. There was a crash of an FCV helicopter conducting aerial ignition near Wandiligong on 19 April 1978 with the tragic death of two forest officers and their pilot. The crash led to the immediate end of the use of DAIDs and the adoption of the safer Premo ping-pong ball incendiary machine which originally came from Canada but was modified at the Altona workshops. Overall, the development of aerial ignition techniques by the Forests Commission from the mid-1960s resulted in a steady climb in the area burnt each year…. peaking at 477,000 ha in 1980-81 and with an impressive 10-year rolling average of 220,000 ha around the time of 1983 Ash Wednesday Bushfires.Developed in Victoria for aerial ignition by the FCV and Byant & MayLarge double ended match used for aerial ignition and back burning by dropping from a helicopterforests commission victoria (fcv), bushfire, planned burning

The Canadians developed a machine that used "ping pong balls" instead of cylindrical incendiary capsules and, in 1977, the FCV purchased a Premo machine for evaluation. The 32mm-diameter balls were made from high impact polystyrene and contained 3.5g of potassium permanganate. They were injected with 1ml of glycol which would ignite after a short delay The first Premo machine used four slipper blocks, which were loaded via a hand-operated hopper which, when rotated forward, the balls would be fed into four feed chutes to individual slipper blocks. Each slipper block has an opening allowing individual balls to enter and exit once injected. The original design of the machine was not suitable to meet the burning objectives and a number of modification were necessary. Following close inspection and field testing it was clear that utilising four slipper blocks was excessive and would generate too much fire. It was acknowledged that satisfactory spacing could be achieved by using just one slipper block. Selective spacing could be achieved by the speeding up or slowing down of the slipper block transferring the capsules during the injection process. Regulating the speed that the injected capsules were being dropped controlled the amount of fire created on the ground. This machine was the result of many years of experimentation at AltonaSignificant development of aerial incendiary machines enabled expansion of the fuel reduction burning program across Victoria.Aerial Incendiary machine for use in helicopters Modification at the Altona workshops over many years by Barry Marsden forests commission victoria (fcv), planned burning, bushfire, bushfire aviation