Retardant Specialists from around region 4 came together recently for the Annual up skill training on Retardant Operations. This has been brought into relevance with the past use of the Retardant foam having dropped 362,000 Litres on the Port Hills fire at the beginning of 2017.
Temperatures on the day were 32 degrees so were realistic conditions for the real thing. Darren Webb from Phos-chek Australia and Murray Lamb from PSL were on hand to give practical and scientific advise.
A retardant operation requires 8-9 personnel but can make about 5000 litres every 6 minutes! Which comfortably keeps 4 fixed wing Aircraft and helicopters supplied as well feed smoke chasers for ground application.
Ken Rodley of the Marlborough / Kaikoura district received full training in order to go away and build their own delivery kit of specialist and routine gear on a large trailer or moderate sized truck in order to support themselves and the Nelson / Tasman area.
A very successful day made possible by volunteers once again giving up there time as well as the trainers and experts.
