On September 1, 2026, an ATR aircraft took to the skies over Toulouse, France, which caught the attention of many, both in the aviation community and beyond.
Turboprops of this kind are hardly a rarity in the skies near the Occitan city, as it’s home to ATR’s assembly line. This flight, however, was somehow special.
The company operating this particular turboprop aircraft, French startup Kepplair Evolution, aims to validate the capability of a specially modified ATR72 to act as a new generation firefighting platform.This recent outing was still a pre-modification flight, although Kepplair Evolution aims to move fast with this program. It is targeting beginning of 2027 for the first tests mimicking real firefighting conditions.
This may sound ambitious, but the need for greater aerial firefighting capacity is real and pressing. Spurred by global warming, the danger posed by large-scale forest fires has been increasing, not just in frequency and scale but also in geographical scope. In 2026, for example, major forest fires have devastated large areas in locations such as western and northern France, and the Netherlands, which are far from the traditionally more fire-prone areas along the Mediterranean basin, adding urgency to the search for firefighting solutions.
However, the problem is that the aviation industry doesn’t really have a very compelling answer at the moment.
The Canadair CL-series amphibious aircraft, operated by several European countries as their primary firefighting platform, is no longer in production, and the existing airframes are starting to show their age. DeHavilland Canada, which took over Canadair, is working on a replacement, the DHC-515, but it will take a few years before this becomes operative.
Other platforms, such as helicopters and the single engine firefighting aircraft made by Air Tractor, have much smaller water-carrying capacity.
A number of startups are working on the development of clean sheet firefighting aircraft, but most of those designs are at a preliminary stage of the development process.
It is in this context that Kepplair Evolution, with its turboprop conversion, enters the picture. The trick is that, by pairing a tried and tested aircraft like the ATR72 to a state-of-the-art highly efficient water dropping system, this startup promises to have a state-of-the-art, mid-sized firefighting platform ready for certification and entry into service as early as 2027.
AeroTime spoke with David Joubert, founder and CEO of Kepplair Evolution, who provided some additional details on the vision behind the KEPPLAIR72 ‘Forest Keeper’ aircraft.
It transpires that Joubert had in fact started thinking about developing a firefighting aircraft for the European civil protection needs as early as 2012. At the time, the Joubert’s preference was for bringing large airliner conversions to Europe using aircraft such as the DC-10 or the B747, which some firefighting contractors have long been using in the United States.
As French and European officials warmed to the idea, the project soon developed towards considering the use of Airbus A330 aircraft as a platform which would have been capable of dropping around 40,000 liters of water in one pass
Those early approaches were shelved, but in the process Joubert assembled a team which amassed a considerable amount of scientific and technical know-how in the field of aerial firefighting. This includes figures such as Professor Dominique Legendre, one of the world’s leading experts in the field.
Kepplair’s efforts were two pronged. On the technical side, the aim was to develop the best performing water dropping system possible. At the same time, there was also a political lobbying effort to pitch the concept to governments, often the ultimate users of these types of platforms.
The KEPPLAIR72 Forest Keeper is in fact a multi-role platform, allowing operators to configure the aircraft for aerial fighting, but also for other uses related to civil protection tasks, such as medical evacuation or even tactical transportation. The different configurations can be changed on demand within a couple of days. It will also be possible for operators to combine two of those functions at the same time, although in that case some compromises would need to be made in terms of capacity.
When it comes to the firefighting role, the core of the system is the water release system. Known as KEDS (Kepplair Evolution Delivery System), it has been developed exclusively for Kepplair by Trotter Controls, a partner firm specialized in the development of telemetry and drop systems for water bomber aircraft, with the participation, as well, of the Toulouse Institute of Fluid Mechanics (IMFT as per its French acronym).