Forest Fire Management Victoria’s 290 G wagons are back in service, following repairs to cracks in the chassis of some vehicles.
Forest Fire Management Victoria has managed to get its 290 Mercedes-Benz G-wagons back on track after cracks were discovered in part of the ultralight tanker’s chassis this spring.
Government sources confirmed that all vehicles had been inspected and the cracks repaired, just in time for the worst of the summer fire season.
The G-wagens are equipped with specialized superstructures, protective structures against falling objects and water tanks, meaning the weight when fully loaded is between 4.4 and 4.6 tonnes.
It remains unclear whether FFMVic was also able to carry out repairs to the subframes of some of its 59 unimog 4WD tankers that were also taken off the road.
The fleet of 4WD vehicles is critical to FFMVic’s role in fighting bushfires, where they play a key role in suppressing breakouts and detecting fires during backburning.
The G-Wagons were purchased as part of a $35 million deal in 2014, and in 2016 another $32 million contract was signed with Mercedes to supply more vehicles, plus the Unimog vehicles.
FFMVic also has 35 heavy red tankers available, plus 206 land cruisers, which can carry slip-on units.
FFMVic last month borrowed about 30 tankers from the NSW Rural Fire Service and another five from the SA Country Fire Servicein response to the initial grounding of its G-Wagen and Unimogs.
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