Airservices is a government-owned corporation providing safe, secure, efficient and environmentally responsible services to the aviation industry. We manage air traffic operations for around 75 million passengers on more than three million flights every year.

About our aviation fire service

We provide aviation rescue and fire fighting (ARFF) services at 21 of Australia’s busiest airports.

Responding to approximately 8,000 aircraft and airport emergency assistance requests nationally in 2010, our primary function is to rescue people and property from an aircraft crash or fire and from other fires on the airport.

Our ARFF service is one of the world’s largest provider of aviation rescue and fire fighting services with over 740 operational and support personnel based around Australia. You can find out more about what they do in our careers section.

We provide services ranging from International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Category 6 to 10 service, consistent with ICAO Annex 14 Recommended Standards and Practice.

Each of our highly trained and experienced fire fighting and technical employees are experts in their field with unique skills and knowledge. We recruit and train fire fighters to ICAO standards.

We must be able to respond to an aircraft incident at either end of a runway within three minutes from the initial call, and be able to apply fire fighting agent at 50 per cent of the maximum discharge rate. Additionally, we must be able to respond to any part of the airport movement area within three minutes.

We own, operate and maintain a fleet of over 100 specialised, highperformance aviation fire fighting vehicles, aerial rescue vehicles, water rescue boats, difficult terrain vehicles and domestic response vehicles. This allows us to respond to a broad range of aviation and airport emergencies, including aircraft incidents, structural fires, medical assistance requests, water rescues and fire alarms.

Fire stations at our busiest airports provide a 24-hour service. Hours of operation at smaller airports are determined by commercial passenger aircraft flight schedules. Our largest ARFF stations are located at Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth airports. The scheduling and frequency of airline operations determines the hours of operation of each ARFF location.

Our costs are recovered through a landing charge paid by airlines.

Service levels

Our level of service ranges from the provision of Category 6 to Category 10 services as determined by Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and ICAO regulations. These categories dictate the required category (based on the size of aircraft serving the airport), the foam and water requirements, response times and discharge rates.

Category 6 airports are Alice Springs, Avalon, Ayers Rock, Broome, Hamilton Island, Launceston, Mackay, Sunshine Coast, and Rockhampton.

Category 7 airports are Canberra, Hobart, Karratha and Townsville.

Category 8 airports are Cairns, Gold Coast and Darwin.

Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth are Category 9 airports, with Melbourne and Sydney Category 10.

More information