"Under the agreement, a Be-200 plane... will be leased out [to Portugal] for two months starting July 1 to be used in fighting wildfires," the Beriev aircraft-building company said in a news release.
The company's chief executive, Viktor Kobzev, signed the lease agreement in Lisbon with Portuguese Deputy State Secretary for the Interior Fernando Rocha Andrade. The Russian aircraft company also undertook to provide technical maintenance and a crew.
The multipurpose turbofan Be-200 can be used as a firefighter, a cargo plane, a flying ambulance, and a passenger airliner. In its firefighting configuration, it can pick up 12 tons (26,460lb) of water by skimming over the water's surface, making it an effective weapon in extinguishing forest fires, a role in which it is used by Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry.
According to Portuguese media, some 300,000 hectares of forest was destroyed in the country in 2005 alone.
