After a gruelling summer skimming lakes and coastlines to dump thousands of tonnes of water on wildfires burning across a parched Europe, Italy's fleet of bright yellow and red Canadair planes has finally returned home to a base near Rome for maintenance.
Italy operates one of the world's largest fleets of Canadair amphibious aircraft, part boat, part plane, that can respond quickly to a fire because they do not need to land to take on water from lakes, reservoirs or the sea.
