ZFPS - Zululand Fire Protection Services

In 1980, Sappi Forests in Natal, were experiencing wild fire problems, especially in the Karkloof area, and new measures to control these fires were called for as serious financial losses were being incurred. Mr. Peter Stoker, at that stage General Manager of Sappi Forests in Natal and who later became Managing Director of Sappi Forests (Pty) Ltd decided it was time to try aerial fire fighting as an additional tool to his armory as wild fire loss was becoming a major problem. Although odd rather unsuccessful experiments had been tried with smaller aircraft in a fire fighting role prior to 1980, no work had been done using the new 2000 litre capacity turbine powered agricultural aircraft that appeared on the South African agricultural scene that year.

It was through Peter Stoker's foresight, some twenty years  ago, in using these new generation agricultural aircraft that aerial fire fighting has developed into the powerful suppression tool that it is today. The Timber industry owes Peter Stoker a great debt of gratitude for "sticking his neck out" so many years ago.

In the winter of 1980, Peter Stoker decided it was time to try aerial fire fighting but had really no idea who could undertake this experiment for Sappi. However, he heard that Orsmond Aerial Spray (Pty) Ltd of Bethlehem in the Orange Free State (as it was known then) had recently purchased new Ayres Turbo Thrush aircraft with a 2000 litre hopper capacity and these aircraft were the obvious choice. A rough airstrip of only about 550 meters was hurriedly prepared at Shafton and asingle Ayres Turbo Thrush was dispatched from Bethlehem to Shafton to attempt to control a fire in the Karkloof valley. As you can well imagine, knowing what we know to day, it was a fair circus. Nobody had any experience on how to load the aircraft quickly, the pilot had to learn how to dump a load accurately on the target and possibly the most important of all, the fire boss had to learn how to give the pilot accurate information about the actual target. And all this in a day or two! But despite all, Peter Stoker saw the possibilities of this form of attack and despite enormous criticism from a large sector of the industry, decided this was the route to go in the future.

After this brief experiment in 1980, planning started for the 1981 season, which really became the first season that serious aerial fire fighting took place in South Africa and that on Sappi plantations.