Australia’s firefighting capacity will fall short unless it buys its own fleet of water-bombing aircraft rather than borrowing them from overseas because monster blazes burning simultaneously across the globe are becoming the norm, two respected former fire chiefs have warned.

However the federal government says purchasing a national firefighting air fleet would be too expensive and current leasing arrangements are working.

Catastrophic bushfires destroyed homes and devastated parts of Tasmania and Victoria this summer, and the timing of intense winter bushfires in southern NSW last year left experts shocked.

The Erickson air crane, aka Elvis, battles a blaze in Victoria. Two former fire chiefs are concerned such craft will soon be unavailable to Australia. Credit:Jason South

Former NSW Fire and Rescue commissioner Greg Mullins and former Tasmanian Fire Service chief Mike Brown – who together have 90 years’ firefighting experience – say increasingly overlapping fire seasons in the southern and northern hemispheres, driven by climate change, mean Australia must procure its own fleet of large air tankers and other craft – some possibly operated by the military.