Around the world, wildfire seasons are getting longer and more intense.
Last summer, Canada’s wildfire season was the most destructive ever recorded, Greece suffered the largest single wildfire in European Union history, Hawaii saw a firestorm kill at least 100 people and destroy 2,200 buildings in Lahaina, and dense smoke impacted the daily lives and health of millions of people far from fire lines.
Governments and the wildfire agencies tasked with preventing, detecting, containing, and suppressing wildfires are facing unprecedented challenges. And as wildfire seasons overlap across the globe, the longstanding practice of sharing scarce resources — including firefighting crews, air tankers and helicopters — is now being challenged.
Canada had the worst wildfire season on record in 2023, with 6,623 wildfires burning 45.4 million acres (18.4 million hectares), compared to the 4,883 fires and 3.6 million acres (1.46 million ha) burned in 2022, and the 10-year average of 6.8 million acres (2.75 million ha), according to the National Wildland Fire Situation Report.
Across Europe, about 1.3 million acres (515,000 hectares) of land was consumed by fires through early November. This was less than the 748,000 hectares scorched in 2023, but the impact was high since many of the fires occurred in protected nature areas and numerous tourist spots, such as Greece and the Canary Islands in Spain.
In the U.S., there were 52,331 fires and 2.6 million acres (one million hectares) burned through mid-November 2023 — the second-lowest amount of land burnt since 2000 — according to the National Interagency Fire Center, with suppression costs totaling $1.7 billion.
Faced with the hard choice of “paying now” or “paying later” to control wildfire losses, governments around the world have been steadily increasing wildfire budgets and driving change to comprehensively address wildfire prevention, mitigation, suppression, management, and post-fire recovery.
Catastrophic fires in Australia in 2009 (173 killed), Greece in 2018 (104 killed) and California in 2018 (103 killed) all triggered increased wildfire budgets and expanded fire aviation fleets.
Each new generation of firefighting aircraft introduces new capabilities, but it’s often the piloting and aircrew skills — not the aircraft — that are the key differentiator in effective wildfire management — and the world’s pool of experienced helicopter firefighters are in very short supply.
Fires in the Great White North
This year, the wildfire season started early in Canada
and grew in intensity with no letup through thesummer.
What set this Canadian wildfire season apart was that fires were widespread, extending from the Atlantic provinces to British Columbia, as well as far to the north, with more than twice the area burned (18.8 million acres/7.6 million ha) than the previous record set in 1989. In fact, this was the hottest summer on record in Canada and the Fire Weather Index far exceeded the norm in most of the country.
The area consumed by fires in Canada was approximately the size of North Dakota or 30 percent more than the landmass of Greece, and a record 200,000 people were evacuated from fire zones through the season. By mid-July, there were more than 30 mega-fires, each exceeding 247,000 acres (100,000 ha). The smoke from these and other wildfires blanketed large parts of the U.S., triggering severe air quality alerts, and even tinted the skies of Northern Europe.
This was the first year that Canadian wildfire agencies literally ran out of available helicopters to transport firefighting crews, use buckets or belly tanks to drop water on a fire, transport gear and equipment, and conduct infrared scanning.
And that’s a major concern, since Canada is home to the world’s second-largest fleet of commercial helicopters — 1,815 units as of mid-summer.
“There were no helicopters available in the entire country,” said a wildfire agency official at the recent Helicopter Association of Canada (HAC) convention in Vancouver, British Columbia. “The supply was completely exhausted.”
He added that “agencies didn’t have enough aircraft at the right time.”
The fire season started early in Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Saskatchewan — and never let up. And when fires broke out later in Ontario, the Northwest Territories and Yukon Territory, most of the rotary-wing firefighting fleet was already contracted or couldn’t be crewed because of a shortage of trained pilots or aircraft maintenance engineers. This problem was compounded by the introduction of new Transport Canada flight and duty time rules, which increased the crewing requirements for busy contracts.
Helicopter availability was also restricted by high demand from the natural resources sector, which was catching up on projects delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The British Columbia Wildfire Service started the season with three Wildcat Helicopters Bell 412s on a long-term contract for its Rapattack program, six medium helicopters to fly strategically positioned initial attack crews, and a smaller helicopter for short haul rescue work.
By the peak day of operations on Aug. 20, B.C. had 150 helicopters on contract and had contracted a record 48,887 flight hours through early November. Alberta had 150 to 200 helicopters on contract at peak season, Saskatchewan had a maximum of 30 helicopters on wildfires, and other provinces even more.
Today, Canada’s heavy-lift helicopter fleet includes five Bell 214Bs, four Bell 214STs, 17 Sikorsky S-61L/Ns and 18 Airbus AS332L/L1/L2. All the Super Pumas have been imported to Canada since 2020 following the type’s general retirement from the offshore market, and four Kamov KA-32A11BC owned by VIH Helicopters have been grounded since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
A growing number of operators with long-term contracts have invested in belly tank systems for their medium helicopters, with some of this fleet (and others with buckets) migrating to the southern hemisphere to fight fires in Australia, Indonesia and South America during the Canadian winter.
This year, Columbia Helicopters also sent a Model 234 north to fight fires in Quebec and Western Canada, and a Siller Brothers S-64 Skycrane found work rebuilding a transmission line destroyed by wildfires.
This was also the first season that most Canadian wildfire agencies had an opportunity to utilize ex-U.S. military Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks, Sikorsky CH-54s, and Boeing CH-47D Chinooks on wildfires. However, the regulatory framework surrounding their wildfire use raised a lot more questions than answers at the recent HAC convention in Vancouver.
Today, at least seven ex-U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-60A Black Hawks have been imported to Canada, with three added to the Canadian civil aircraft register. The performance capabilities of the Black Hawk are impressive, but a big grey area persists as to how the aircraft can be used.
After conducting trials in 2022, Alberta Wildfire has become the first agency to hire a nighttime firefighting helicopter with the award of a five-year contract to Talon Helicopters for an Airbus AS365 N3 Dauphin, equipped with night vision goggles (NVG) and a 240-US gallon (900-liter) water tank. Recently, B.C. Wildfire also indicated it is planning to add a night firefighting capability.
It’s too early to say how the firefighting lessons of the 2023 season will be applied in 2024 and subsequent years. The last six years have seen the largest fire seasons in Canadian history and two of the quietest, so there has not been a steady upturn, but more extremes.
A continental problem
The alarming increase in wildfires caused by heatwaves across Europe has broken records in recent years, with six times as much land in France and Spain burned in 2022 as in the previous 15 years, and multiple fires in Greece in 2023 and elsewhere triggering major evacuations.
Southern Europe has a long history of aerial firefighting, but each country has its own approach to wildfire management, including initial and extended aerial responses to wildfires based on local regulations, geography, budgets, and other resource limits.
The end of the Cold War triggered a migration of Russian helicopters into the European firefighting market with the lease of Mil Mi-2s, Mi-8s, Mi-17s and even the giant Mi-26s for a period. The Kamov Ka-32A11BC scored sales following its certification by EASA, arriving in Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and more recently Turkey — before the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Countries like France, Italy and Portugal have been renewing their government-managed helicopter fleets, including aircraft that have firefighting responsibilities. European operators like Airlift (Super Puma), Avincis (Super Puma), Heli Austria (Super Pumas) and Heli Swiss (Columbia V107) have helped grow the local fleet of heavy-lift firefighting helicopters, replacing some of the grounded Russian helicopter models.
Climate change is also seeing the wildfire challenge shift north, with countries like Germany, Hungary, Poland and Sweden looking to build their aerial firefighting capability.
In parallel, the European Commission has upgraded the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and, in 2019, created rescEU. This included the establishment of a permanent reserve fleet of firefighting aircraft and helicopters that can be mobilized to provide wildfire and disaster relief when local resources are overwhelmed. As of September 2023, the rescEU fleet consisted of 24 firefighting airplanes and four helicopters.
France is the only European nation that has heavily invested in using fire retardant for fire containment, even though the use of retardant is widespread in mature markets like Canada and the U.S.
Last summer, France had a firefighting fleet of 47 fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, including nine Airbus H145s and 10 contract helicopters for waterbombing in high-risk areas.
In December 2021, Sécurité Civile took delivery of the first of four five-bladed Airbus H145s as part of a plan to replace 33 older four-bladed H145s that first entered service in 2002. And, in late 2022, French president Emmanuel Macron announced plans to acquire two large firefighting helicopters.
Around the Mediterranean
The 2023 fire season saw multiple wildfires across Greece. It included a fire in the Evros region that burnt 204,000 acres (82,500 ha) and caused at least 20 deaths, making it the largest wildfire disaster in the EU since 2000. In addition to the mobilization of rescEU firefighting helicopters, rotary-wing aircraft also joined the fight from Egypt, Jordan and Turkey.
A year ago, Greece’s Hellenic Fire Service managed a national firefighting fleet of 50 aircraft and leased an additional 44 aircraft. The owned fleet included 11 helicopters operated by the Hellenic Police, Hellenic Fire Service and Greek Army. The leased fleet included nine Erickson S-64 Aircranes and 20 medium helicopters.
In late 2022, the Hellenic Fire Service announced plans to upgrade two Airbus Super Pumas, as well as the purchase of three medium-sized helicopters (for HEMS and disaster management), and two S-64s for firefighting.
Since then, reports from Europe suggest that Greece is interested in acquiring a much larger fleet of S-64s after Erickson’s success deploying them on recent wildfires. This would be along with the support of six Bell 214Bs/214STs contracted from Australia’s McDermott Aviation, with some now equipped with belly tanks that feature a new sea snorkel to reload from the ocean.
In previous years, Greece had leased Russian-built helicopters to fight fires, but this avenue closed for most wildfire agencies in Europe after EASA pulled the type certificate for the Ka-32, and barred Russian aviation companies and their employees from working in Europe.
Turkey is another fire-prone Mediterranean country, with a 30-year record set in 2021 when 2,793 fires burned 345,000 acres (139,503 ha). After this, Turkey announced plans to purchase a fleet of 75 firefighting aircraft, including 55 helicopters.
In 2022, Turkey’s aerial firefighting fleet included six administrative helicopters and 61 firefighting helicopters leased from private operators. To support ground firefighter and helicopter use, a network of 4,630 fire pools and ponds has been established in forested areas to reduce transit times.
Following the conclusion of operations in Afghanistan in 2021, Columbia Helicopters secured firefighting contracts for two Model 234s in Turkey, utilizing the 2,600-US gallon (9,840-liter) Bambi Bucket for precision water and retardant drops. This marked the third consecutive year of Columbia’s involvement in firefighting relief in Turkey, with the number of aircraft increasing to five.
In 2023, Turkey took delivery of one Turkish Aerospace Industries T70 firefighting helicopter (based on the Sikorsky S-70i), which is the first firefighting helicopter in the inventory of the Forestry Directorate.
In July, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated the country was negotiating to purchase Russian firefighting helicopters.
Over in Italy, the country’s regions are responsible for forecasting, preventing and actively fighting forest fires, with 70 firefighting helicopters contracted by regional governments in 2022. The national government assists these efforts with a rotary-wing firefighting fleet operated by the Vigili del Fuoco that includes six S-64F Aircranes. This makes it the only European country that owns a dedicated fleet of heavy-lift firefighting helicopters.
In October 2022, the Carabinieri (the police branch of the military) ordered 20 Leonardo AW119Kxs that will be used for a variety of missions — including firefighting — from 18 bases across Italy. The first of the new RH-119As (the new designation) flew at Leonardo’s Vergiate factory in November 2023.
The Iberian Peninsula
In Portugal, 60 fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft were used for firefighting in 2022, according to the Forest Fires in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa 2022 annual, published by the European Commission.
Firefighting aircraft are contracted through the central government rather than the provinces, with light and intermediate single-engine helicopters historically favored.
However, Arista Aviation Services of Enterprise, Alabama, recently delivered the first four of six refurbished UH-60A Black Hawks to the Portuguese Air Force for firefighting. They are configured to transport 12 and will be able to drop up to 750 US gallons (2,840 liters) of water on a fire. It will be the first use of the Black Hawk in a firefighting role in Southern Europe.
In 2006, Portugal acquired six Kamov Ka-32A11BCs for firefighting (among other things), but they have now been donated to the Ukrainian government.
Across the border, Spain must tackle wildfires not only in the Iberian Peninsula, but also in the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands off the northwestern coast of Africa. Spain is home to 715 civil helicopters, with many aircraft contracted each season. The country’s 17 autonomous regions contract their own firefighting helicopters.
The national rotary-wing firefighting fleet includes eight heavy helicopters, 19 firefighting helicopters, and four observation helicopters.
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has 10 Forest Fire Reinforcement Brigade (BRIF) units. These are each equipped with two Bell 412 helicopters to transport firefighting teams.
One major development in the European firefighting scene has been the sale of part of Babcock’s aerial emergency services business to Ancala Partners, a mid-market infrastructure investor, for €136.2 million (US$145.1 million). The business, named Avincis, provides air medical, firefighting and search-and-rescue services across a number of European countries, Africa, and South America.
Avincis has sizable firefighting operations in Spain, Portugal and Italy that are contracted by local, regional and national authorities for a variety of missions. These include water bombing, firefighter transport, aerial coordination, wildfire detection and live footage broadcasting.
The company’s helicopter operations in Spain are the most extensive, with 44 helicopters under multi-year contracts. These include Bell 407s and 412s, and Airbus AS355s and AS332 L2s.
Avincis has been operating the Ka-32A11BC since 2004, but is in the process of replacing them. A company spokesperson told Vertical it is “analyzing all the available options. We have five Airbus AS332 Super Pumas already in operation, not necessary as a Ka-32 replacement, but as an additional and effective tool.”
One of the challenges in Europe is that “belly tanks convert aircraft into restricted category and prevent the transportation of firemen,” the spokesperson added. “Hence, the buckets are a preferred option being lighter and more flexible. Typically, a helicopter will fly with a fire squad onto an incident, land as close as possible to it, the squad would install the bucket and both the helicopter, and the squad would work in close cooperation over a section of the fire.”
A quiet season in the U.S.
The summer of 2023 was a slower than average fire season in the continental U.S., but devastating wildfires destroyed the town of Lahaina in Hawaii, with a high loss of life, highlighting the ever-present danger.
The use of heavy helicopters for firefighting in the country has grown with the fire risk. New heavy-lift operators have been able to enter the firefighting market after the U.S. military started selling a limited number of Boeing CH-46 Sea Knights and CH-47D Chinooks, as well as hundreds of Sikorsky UH-60A Black Hawks.
Up to 800 UH-60s have been approved for sale through the U.S. Army’s Black Hawk Exchange and Sales Transaction (BEST) program through 2026.
For decades, the growth of the U.S. firefighting fleet under exclusive use contract was constrained by federal budgets, while wildfire suppression costs soared in major fire years.
The largest Federal wildfire aircraft contractor is the US Forest Service (USFS), which has historically contracted 28 large Type 1, 34 medium Type 2, and almost 50 light/intermediate Type 3 helicopters on exclusive use contracts (EU), as well as additional helicopters under a call when needed (CWN) basis.
While the northern hemisphere fire season has largely drawn to a close, those in the southern hemisphere are gearing up for whatever challenges their summer may present. Many of those working on the former are already in the south preparing for the latter. As the world heats up, there is no let up in the global battle against wildfires.