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.

Many technological and safety improvements followed including the Raindance machine

Physical description

Aerial Incendiary Machine developed in Western Australia
Rather than "ping pong balls" it uses a belt of incendiary "caplets" which are injected inside the machine before being ejected

Inscriptions & markings

Raindance Systems R2