Firefighters of the sky – Extraordinary images

A Greek Fire Service plane clears a hilltop, after just dumping its load of water on a forest fire outside the central Greek city of Thebes on Thursday, July 23, 2009. Six water-dropping planes and two helicopters were involved in the effort to contain the blaze, aided by a lull in high winds that had earlier threatened a village in the area. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris).

A helicopter tries to extinguish a wildfire next to a house near Nuoro, in the centre of Sardinia, Italy on July 23, 2009. (MASSIMO LOCCI/AFP/Getty Images).

Members of the fire brigade “Romeo 10″ of Segovia watch as a tanker plane makes a drop over a fire in Parras, near Avila, Spain on July 29, 2009. (PEDRO ARMESTRE/AFP/Getty Images).

The shadow of a Greek Fire Service plane appears on the ground as smoke rises from a fire outside the central Greek city of Thebes on Thursday, July 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris).

A firefighting helicopter lifts water from a swimming pool in El Arenal, near Avila, Spain as forest fires raged in the region, on July 29, 2009. (PEDRO ARMESTRE/AFP/Getty Images).

A firefighting airplane drops water over a forest fire near Avlonari village on the island of Evia northeast of Athens, Greece on July 30, 2009. (REUTERS/Yiorgos Karahalis).

An airplane dumps water on a forest fire which is burning out of control in Mazo municipality on the southern part of La Palma island in Spain’s Canary Islands on August 2, 2009. (REUTERS/Santiago Ferrero).

A fire-fighting helicopter collects water to control a wildfire in Segorbe, near Valencia, Spain on July 25, 2009. (REUTERS/Heino Kalis)

A firefighting airtanker drops Phos-Check fire retardant over the Gap fire as more than 1,000 wildfires continue burning across about 680 square miles of central and northern California, on July 3, 2008 near Goleta, California. (David McNew/Getty Images)

10 Tanker Air Carrier, a DC-10 jet converted to a firefighting aircraft, drops Phos-Check fire retardant over the Piute fire as more than 1,400 wildfires continue to burn across about 550 square miles of central and northern California, on July 1, 2008 south of Isabella Lake, California. (David McNew/Getty Images

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