One of a pair of colourful Canadair CL-215 water bombers that arrived in Inuvik on Monday.

Operated by Buffalo Airways under contract to the Government of the Northwest Territories, two CL-215's showed up to stand fire watch during this period of extreme forest fire hazard. 

First introduced by Canadair in 1969, the CL-215 is the most widely used purpose-built fire fighting aircraft in the world.  125 airframes were manufactured before production ended in 1990.  Many aircraft have been upgraded to the CL-215T turbine version (although the ones here have the original R-2800 radial engines) and Canadair (now Bombardier) still manufactures the follow-on CL-415 turbine powered aircraft.

With the forest fire hazard here still 'off-scale-high' the CL-215's were joined a few days later by this Douglas C-54G water bomber.