Campbell Elliott is the Captain of the local Edith Farms Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade.
Edith Farms VBB is located north of Katherine in the NT. Katherine is about 320kms South of Darwin and about 530kms north east of Kununurra. WA.
The Brigades activities primarily revolve around fire risk mitigation work around April May June;
One of the mitigation activities is undertaking approximately 140kms of roadside verge burns. “We couldn’t do without 'ARNIE' (The Accufire Forest Unit), it's cut down our workload by 2/3rds.”
We also respond to roughly 15 to 20 bushfires during the dry season, August thru to December, the period when the threat is at its height. We just leave 'ARNIE' on the vehicle all the time now.
It gets used to lay down back-burns all the time and it's saved an awful lot of country and infrastructure!
We get about 10 to 15 kilometres of burning per 20 litres of fuel so about 20 to 30 kms with both tanks.
We’ve had the unit about 4 years now and I would strongly encourage anyone in this field to invest in one.
On one occasion, close to Katherine, we would have lost a lot of infrastructure if it wasn’t for the Accufire Unit. On another occasion the 'vollys' from Katherine called in our brigade to help. “And bring ARNIE with you” they said.