France will increase its air resources to fight forest fires by signing the order for two additional Canadairs, promised by Emmanuel Macron after the fires in the summer of 2022, we learned from those close to the Minister of the Interior.
The signing with the Canadian firm De Havilland, the only one to manufacture the Canadair, must be made official during Laurent Nuñez’s trip to the Gard on Thursday June 4 for the opening of the forest fire season.
This is Canadair’s second acquisition tranche, with delivery scheduled for 2032-2033. The first, completed in 2024 via partly European funding, must be delivered in 2028. Ultimately, the civil security fleet must include 16 water bomber planes.
In October 2022, Emmanuel Macron announced an additional envelope of 150 million euros for the Departmental Fire and Rescue Services (Sdis) and an investment of 250 million euros, in particular for an order from Canadair.
“Nearly four years later, the realization of this ambition remains in its infancy and totally insufficient in view of the acceleration of climate risks,” reacted Thursday the National Federation of Firefighters, which pleaded in a press release for “a more ambitious and more sovereign strategy”.
The problem of resources, and in particular the renewal of the aging French fleet, is nagging in a context of climate change which, according to experts, accentuates heatwaves, floods and other extreme phenomena.
A fleet that “is no longer adapted to needs”
According to a parliamentary report published in July 2025, “the fleet is no longer adapted to needs, which are increasing sharply under the effect of global warming”, which increases the risk of major forest fires like those just experienced in the south of the country.
According to the National Forestry Office (ONF), the summer of 2025 recorded nearly 15,000 fire outbreaks in France, affecting 30,000 hectares of forests and other vegetation. Among them, 1,800 forest fires ravaged nearly 20,000 hectares, including the fire in August in the Corbières massif in Aude.
Around fifty departments appear on the updated list of woods and forests classified as at risk of fire, including Côtes-d’Armor and Seine-et-Marne.
At the European level, the EU is preparing for the fire season by prepositioning nearly 800 firefighters in risk areas (Spain, Greece, Italy, etc.). As part of the EU civil protection mechanism, France will host four European forest fire modules, notably in Bouches-du-Rhône and Gironde.
The announcement concerning the Canadair comes as the nine fire unions, united as an inter-union, challenged the government last week on the urgency of reforming the financing of the Sdis, a system “on the verge of collapse”.
