The extraordinary wildfires that tore through France, Spain and Greece this summer put a spotlight on the Canadair water bomber, the large Canadian amphibious aircraft that repeatedly swoops down to scoop up water before dropping it to douse the flames. In some places the planes operated as a squadron to magnify their impact, and residents credited them with saving entire communities. But the same fires have exposed a global shortage of the aircraft and sparked a scramble for more.
The water bomber has a long pedigree. The original design dates back to the 1960s, and over the past six decades the aircraft has become a workhorse for fighting wildfires in Canada, Europe and on every continent, from Australia onward. About 160 of the planes are still operating around the world. New water bombers were ordered back in 2022, but the wait for them continues, fuelling backlash in fire-stricken countries that feel unprepared for increasingly extreme summers.
For decades, Bombardier built the aircraft, but it stopped in 2015 as demand slowed. The program is now owned by Calgary-based De Havilland, which took the rare step of resurrecting and modernizing production four years ago. The first two aircraft of the revived line are already taking shape, with the wings, nose and cockpit on schedule to be completed in early 2028. Executive Neil Sweeney, showing off the production floor, said about 80 percent of the parts are made in Canada.
The challenge is matching that output to soaring demand. De Havilland has 38 orders on its books and is planning to produce about 10 aircraft a year, but says manufacturing could double if a large enough order came through. As one company representative put it, if there were an order of 50 from Canada, a second production line would be built immediately. The planes are not cheap, however, with each aircraft estimated at around 80 million dollars.
Several provinces are already in the queue. Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba all have water bombers on order, and any new order placed today would only be delivered about six years from now at the earliest. Without firm orders in hand, the company is reluctant to make the investments and hiring needed to ramp up. That has prompted Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to pitch a big order and urge her provincial counterparts to partner with Ottawa so the federal government can step in and guarantee enough work to justify a second line.
The federal government is weighing its options. For this summer, Ottawa leased 10 airplanes and helicopters for provinces and territories to use against the fires, aircraft that officials say are in such high demand that competing requests sometimes have to be triaged. Ottawa is also considering whether to launch a national fleet of modern firefighting aircraft, one of the recommendations from a Senate report released in June, and says it is in close contact with the provinces and territories to coordinate the response.
There is a warning attached to the debate. If production at De Havilland does not scale up to meet the growing demand, industry voices caution that foreign companies or countries, whether China, Russia, France, Greece or the United Kingdom, could move to develop their own rival firefighting aircraft. That prospect lands at a moment when the federal government is trying to strengthen the national economy and bolster domestic manufacturing, making the fate of the Canadair a question of both firefighting capacity and industrial strategy.