Program timings and content may be subject to change
President Rousset, Nouvelle Aquitaine, France
Amentum Aviation is proud to serve as a Platinum Sponsor for the Aerial Firefighting Europe Conference 2025. In this presentation, we will highlight our role as a global leader in aviation services and our collaboration with CALFIRE - a partnership that sets the benchmark for aerial firefighting programs worldwide.
We'll introduce Amentum's unique capabilities to the Aerial Firefighting Community, showcasing how we support CALFIRE's critical mission to combat wildfires with precision and efficient. Key topics will include:
• Our Aircraft and Expertise: From cutting-edge technology to the skilled maintainers and pilots who keep us operationally ready. • Mission Success Metrics: How we achieve an ambitious goal of containing 95 % of fires to 10 acres or less. • Operational Impact: Real-world results and lessons learned from our fire response efforts. • Expanding Horizons: The integration of our C-130 aerial firefighting program, adding advanced capabilities to our mission set.
This presentation is more than an introduction - it's a comprehensive exploration of our unwavering commitment to protecting lives, property, and the environment through innovation, excellence, and partnership.
Join us as we share our vision for the future of aerial firefighting.
The Global AFF mission, as with all aspects of wildfire management, is seeing exponential growth in demand across most geographies. Although investments are increasing in many nations, the increase in demand far outstrips available and currently planned investments. What are the key chokepoints? Where are the greatest risks? This panel will look at important aspects of the AFF ecosystem to highlight and discuss the biggest challenges.
Having highlighted where shortfalls exist in the previous panel, we will now hear from key stakeholders on how they are addressing capacity challenges, and how they see resolution for some of the major factors, and what is needed, for the period ahead.
There are many benefits to dispatching a smaller aircraft to fly continuously over a fire, monitoring fire activity, mapping fire perimeters, assessing risk to nearby infrastructure, strategizing drops, coordinating aircraft, and communicating with pilots and ground crews. Learn from one of these fire experts on how this command and control aircraft works to help slow down and contain extreme wildfires, ensuring drops from multiple aircraft are strategically placed for best results.
Giving a current overview of the Spanish State fleet allocated to aerial firefighting operations. The presentation will focus on the uncertainties and challenges, specificially the need of increasing and upgrading the public fleet within a context of market tensions and increasing costs in the aeronautical sector. In this regard, ongoing projects such as the acquisition of the new DHC-515 and the upgrading of the CL-215T fleet will be discussed.
De Havilland Canada will present an update of the investments De Havilland Canada has made in maintaining the current fleet and an update on the De Havilland Canadair 515 aircraft including a discussion of improvements being made to improve upon the already reliable CL-415 platform.
At Aerial Firefighting Europe 2025, Pierre Carlotti, founder of Aria Firefighting, and Eric Flores, Director of SDIS 34, will present the MultiFireScan initiative - an innovative aerial wildfire surveillance and predictive analysis system.
This cross-sector collaboration highlights the synergy between technology development and real-world firefighting operations. Aria Firefighting designed and deployed the MultiFireScan system, while SDIS 34 integrated it into active wildfire response, providing invaluable feedback and operational insights.
At the core of MultiFireScan lies the integration of Overwatch's high-resolution aerial sensors with the Firecaster predictive simulation engine. This combination enables real-time fire mapping, early detection, and fire spread forecasting, transforming raw data into actionable intelligence. Firecaster enhances resource allocation and precision suppression strategies, giving command centers a strategic advantage. The Montouliers (July 29) and Sain Privat (August 21) wildfires will serve as case studies, demonstrating how these technologies improved situational awareness, optimized resource deployment, and enhanced coordination between aerial and ground units.
Through Aria Firefighting's expertise, MultiFireScan was seamlessly integrated into operational protocols, ensuring rapid deployment and effective decision-making during live wildfire events. This presentation will highlight the seamless integration of cutting-edge technology into real-world firefighting strategies and how MultiFireScan has set a new benchmark for aerial firefighting operations.
Airtanker firefighting is a fascinating tool operated to fight wildland fires. Airtankers are, however, developed based on empirical methods and their performance is only discovered after drop tests made above a grid of cups distributed on a plane field with no vegetation (the cup & grid method) developed during the 90's. Dropping liquid from an aircraft seems easy to achieve because the released liquid directly falls to the ground due to gravity. However, the fluid dynamics processes that govern this practice is characterized by rich and varied physical phenomena, and controlling the resulting fluid distribution of the drop pattern raises many scientific issues. The liquid column penetration in the air, its large-scale fragmentation and an intense surface atomization give shape to the rainfall produced by the airtanker and the final product deposition onto the canopy. The respective roles of these mechanisms are here described and analyzed in order to determine the parameters of importance for improving airtanker drop performance for more efficient firefighting.
New technologies are transforming the wildfire and AFF missions. The emergence of space-based and uncrewed systems offers significant benefits to all stakeholders. How best to harness these, and what are the options available today, and tomorrow?
As part of the FIRE DRONE project, the Directorate-General for Civil Protection and Crisis Management set up a working group made up of experts from the national land-based resources group (GMNT), the mine clearance response group (GID), the airborne resources group (GMA) and more than 20 fire departments from 7 defence and security zones in mainland France. This working group has defined and developed scenarios for use that will be test in the New Aquitaine region. The aim is to validate the specifications of the technical reference framework, particularly in terms of the added value of the integration and mass processing of the data captured by the drones.
Climate change has significantly increased the risk of wildfires, presenting new challenges for firefighter communities. Airbus aims to strengthen its role in aerial firefighting while fostering a wildfire management ecosystem where all stakeholders can efficiently collaborate and interoperate.
Sponsored by Airbus Helicopters
Sponsored by Amentum Aviation
(invited guests only)
Explore how you can elevate your pilots' skills and enhance the safety of your fire-fighting operations with innovative and cost-effective flight training devices.
The presentation will provide fundamental differences in the employment of helicopter legacy water buckets and fixed tanks in the every emerging global wildfire threat. Focused topic areas:
• System Efficiency • Safety • Regulatory Compliance • Maintenance • Flight Crew Training • Proper Application • Initial Attack Response Speeds • NVIS and NVG Operations • Environmental Benefit • Agency Certification
The attendee will leave with a comprehensive understanding of the proper application of water buckets and fixed tanks. Aided with this knowledge, Decision Makers, Wildfire Managers, Operation Personnel and Contracting Officers will gain a better understanding on how to deploy, manage, and resource the right aerial fire suppression system for safe, efficient, cost saving operations.
Which strategy is right for you?
We will be exploring the nexus between key principles and components for adapting or enhancing capability and capacity into today's WUI environment.
Presentation of the forest structure in Germany and the peculiarities due to forest use and geographical conditions.
Presentation of the special situation regarding forest fires in munitions-contaminated areas.
Introduction to the fire department system in Germany and the current situtation of aerial firefighting with an explanation of the reasons for it.
Evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages or the differences between fixed-wing aircraft compared to helicopters in forest fighting in Germany.
Explore the innovation capabilities of the Modular Airborne Firefighting System (MAFFS) and its role in protecting communities from wildfires worldwide.
This presentation covers the system's unique engienering, its adaptability to platforms like the C-130, C-390, and C-27J, and the global partnerships that leverage its efficiency. Gain insights into how MAFFS delivers cost-effective, high-performance solutions to meet the demands of modern aerial firefighting.
Based on an initiative by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Global Fire Management Hub is currently being established at the FAO. The "Fire Hub" brings together key partners to assist countries in building capacities to implement Integrated Fire Management (IFM) to reduce the negative impacts of wildfires on livelihoods, landscapes and global climate stability. With the support of Germany, FAO has convened a series of technical workshops with key partners over the course of 2023 and 2024 to guide the integration of the 25-year-old Global Fire Monitoring Center (GMFC) into the Fire Hub.
The Fire Hub seeks to facilitate more targeted support to countries by leveraging the collaborative efforts of a robust partnership of UN agencies, international / regional organizations, experts and academia, providing a level of assistance that surpasses what any single international, regional or national organization could achieve alone. Themes and objectives of Working Groups are currently defined. The formation of the "Interoperability Working Group" is currently underway. Likely, this Working Group will provide support for international cooperation, consider standards for IFM, standards and protocols for international interoperability in preparedness and response to wildfire emergencies, and mutual exchange and capacity development. The International Fire Aviation Working Group (IFAWG), which is currently in transition to the "International Aerial Fire Management Working Group", will contribute to the Fire Hub's Interoperability Working Group by creating an international platform for enhancing effectiveness, efficiency and safety of aerial support in landscape fire management.
How to maintain the efficacy and impact of aerial operations in the new environmental conditions, particularly high wind and other extreme weather? This panel brings science, front line practitioners and vendors together to consider the way forward.
Until recently, the predictable fire seasons in both Hemispheres allowed for efficient sharing of assets, people and resource around the world (when needed). With more and more nations experiencing in-season shortages, and extended fire seasons, collaboration is being re-defined. Our gathering of senior stakeholders will consider this challenge and suggest new methods that are working or need to be considered.
