Mothballed firefighting plane back in production

September 17, 2024 - Retired from production in 2015, Canada’s DHC-515 “Canadair”, the world’s best amphibious firefighting plane, is back in production after an EU order for 22 new aircraft.

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Globally, 2023 was the worst year for wildfires, with an area approximately the size of North Korea going up in flames.

One of the key methods for fighting forest fires is to use firefighting aircraft to douse the flames from the sky.

The DHC-515 Firefighter, also known as the “Canadair”, is the world’s best amphibious firefighting plane. Formerly built by Bombardier, until financial woes caused it to sell off the unit to De Havilland, the plane has been out of production since 2015.

The new owners first considered restarting production of the plane in 2019, but needed a minimum number of orders to mitigate high production costs.

Then in 2020, with climate change causing increasing numbers of fires every year, the EU started looking at expanding its aerial firefighting fleet. By combining demand from across the region, it has been able to place an order for 22 new planes – enough to get production back up and running.

The aircraft, including a few upgrades to avionics, cost €50 million each and will be delivered to Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain – taking around 18-36 months for the order to be completed at De Havilland’s Calgary plant in Canada.