Historical information
Alan McArthur from the CSIRO began his experimental burning program in the late 1950s near Canberra and published his landmark paper in 1962, “Controlled burning in eucalypt forests”.
Leaflet No. 80, as it was known, proved a turning point for forest and fire managers across Australia.
It led to the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Meter (FFDM) which first appeared in operational use in 1967 as the Mk 4.
The CSIRO had developed its semi-automatic aerial incendiary machine dropping small capsules, with the first trial from a fixed-wing Cessna 337 at Manjimup in December 1965.
In April 1969, the Forests Commission borrowed the second prototype of the CSIRO machine to carry out fuel reduction burning at Orbost. The success prompted the purchase of their own machine in 1970, which now sits in the Altona Museum.
Significance
Pioneering machine in the development of aerial ignition in Australia
Physical description
Aerial Incendiary Machine
