Spain is to fit some of its Airbus A400M military transport aircraft with specialist firefighting equipment, the country’s president, Pedro Sánchez, announced on May 21, 2026.
The firefighting kit is a Roll-on/Roll-off (Ro-Ro) system that can be fitted in standard A400M aircraft without the aircraft needing any type of special modification.
An aircraft fitted with this equipment is able to drop up to 20,000 liters of fire retardant in a single pass from altitudes as low as 98 feet (approximately 30 meters). According to Airbus, the tank can be refilled in less than 10 minutes while on the ground, using standard fire service equipment.
The A400M firefighting kit has been tested successfully over the last few years by the French and Spanish air forces, although it has not yet been deployed in real operational environments.
The announcement of the kit’s acquisition, deployment of which is already expected to take place during Summer 2026, was made at a press conference held at Torrejón de Ardoz Air Base, near Madrid. At the conference, the Spanish president and his minister of defense, Margarita Robles, presented the government’s annual summer firefighting campaign.
In addition to the A400Ms, the Spanish Air Force is also to assign four of its CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters and two Eurocopter AS532 Cougars to firefighting tasks.
These helicopters can be fitted with flexible water buckets. However, it has not yet been confirmed whether this will be the case, or whether they will be assigned to logistic support missions, carrying firefighters and materiel to spots that are difficult to reach by land.
Although Spain and its different regional governments operate a sizable fleet for firefighting purposes, reinforced every summer and including numerous specialized aircraft, it is not common for the Spanish military to operate its regular aircraft and helicopters on a dual capacity to drop water on fires from the air.
However, Spain does have a military aerial firefighting unit, the so-called ‘Grupo 43’, which operates a fleet of ten DeHavilland Canda (Canadair) CL-215T and 4 CL-415 amphibious aircraft. Some of these will be replaced over the coming years by seven new generation DHC-515s, also made by DeHavilland Canda.
In August 2025, through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, the Netherlands sent two Chinook helicopters equipped with buckets and 60 soldiers to support firefighting efforts in Spain.
