This year Babcock has flown more than 5,500 missions and more than 11,000 flight hours across its aerial firefighting and fire prevention operation, dropping approximately 200 million litres of water to fight wild-fires in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Canada.

With more than 35 years of experience in aerial firefighting, Babcock has access to around 500 professionals to operate its 50 strong fleet of light, medium and heavy helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, along with managing the Italian Government's amphibious Canadair water bombers.

Babcock says that during a drier than normal summer, operational teams in Spain helped to extinguish more than 20 wild fires with burn areas of approximately 500 hectares each. This summer season saw Babcock incorporate new technologies to fight fires, such as five Super Puma heavy helicopters modified to extinguish fires in Spain.

Meanwhile in Italy, Babcock says fires have increased by 256% this year and over 150,000 hectares of forest were burnt. Flight crews delivered more than 2,100 missions and over 6,000 flight hours, with a record number of flight hours flown in a single day.

Babcock has dropped over 53 million litres of water on wildfires in Manitoba this year and completed over 874 firefighting missions. In 2018, Babcock was awarded a 10-year contract for delivering aerial wildfire suppression services by the Government of Manitoba in Canada. As part of the contract Babcock manages, maintains and operates Manitoba's fleet of seven Canadair amphibious water-bomber aircraft.

Giulio Fini, southern Europe managing director at aviation says: “Across our global firefighting operation we are proud of our ability to make the world a bit safer. Summer 2021 was a challenging time operationally with wild fires across Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Mediterranean countries. Despite the challenges our highly trained and experienced teams are ready to intervene, deploy innovative technology and focus on prevention or extinguishing the threat to the forests and local communities.”