Australian-owned aviation operations and engineering company Air Affairs Australia (AAA) has played an integral role in the extreme bushfire season with its special mission Firescan capability.

AAA has provided airborne bushfire reconnaissance services throughout Australia since 1994 and, as a unique 'eye-in-the-sky', captures critical fire intelligence imagery and mapping data for fire agencies.

Its Firescan is able to capture line scan imagery of bushfire activity from the air and provide clearly defined ground images of active fire and burnt terrain, even through dense smoke. Images are transmitted directly from the aircraft via satellite, to operation centres, for near real-time utilisation.

This data provides intelligence capability to assist incident management teams to plan and deploy tactical firefighting assets, 24 hours a day. During the increased 2019/20 bushfire season, AAA’s aircraft have scanned the equivalent of 50 per cent of the total area of Australia.

CEO Chris Sievers is proud to support firefighting agency customers in their important efforts to protect life and property: “It is personally inspiring to see the significant efforts our crew and staff undertake every year to provide and deliver this important service in a challenging environment,” he says.

“Firescan is an important part of our business, which we committed to 25 years ago with a vision of one day achieving a national and international service. We are committed to work with governments, both state and federal, to contribute our part of an evolving national aerial firefighting fleet.”