Department of Fire and Emergency Services (Western Australia)

We've been lucky to, through funding from the Shire, to put 13 units into local brigade trucks and they will be mini Starlinks.

And on top of that, the DFES trial units, which they are hoping to roll out across the state, we've acquired another five units.

So in total, we'll have 18 units and that'll provide a good network across the region for and hopefully give us some pretty good secure connectivity, pretty broad scale.

So tell us about the DFES trial, Phil.

Exactly what is it looking at?

DFES, we're doing a trial between sort of small units and larger units and trying to mesh them, provide a wireless mesh as well as just the Starlink units.

So that will be spread across the Esperance region from east to west.

Successful, they will continue to roll that out across the state.

A total fire ban has been declared in Karratha in Western Australia's Pilbara.

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services says people in the city must not light, maintain or use a fire in the open air or carry out any activity that could start a fire.

The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting a top of thirty-three in Karratha today with winds up to forty kilometers per hour.

The fire danger rating is extreme.

Has that always been yours and the group's concern with this development or does part of it come down to what it would mean for that landscape and that area too?

This has always been about bushfire and our position, our community position has been consistently endorsed by DFES who rejected this plan three times because of bushfire dangers and by the state's highest planning authority which is the WA Planning Commission.

they also rejected this plan effectively three times.

So the community has been against it for 35 years, initially because the imposition of thousands of people into a stranded and isolated hills region was just such an absurd proposition to make.