Piloting a firefighting aircraft is sweaty, tiring work, Mr. Mattiacci said. The conditions that increase fire risk — hot days, high wind, often mountainous areas — also make for turbulent flying conditions. The aircraft fly at low speeds, increasing the turbulence, he added.

“You get pulled up out of your seat and your head bangs against the roof,” he said. In the hot conditions, pilots must keep just hydrated enough not to have to use the bathroom, on flights that can last up to five hours, he said.

There’s also a risk of flying into the thick, blinding smoke that wildfires send up, he said. The aircraft flying low to the ground — sometimes as low as the height of treetops — meaning there’s a significant risk of flying into power lines, radio towers and buildings.

“When we lose all visual reference, it gets a bit scary,” he said.

The stronger the winds, the harder it is to get close to the fire, as winds push the smoke around and obstruct visibility.

The large air tankers in Australia drop retardant from an altitude of about 100 to 150 feet, he said, while smaller ones can fly even lower. The largest tankers — which can carry up to 9,400 gallons of fire retardant at a time, and have been used to fight the Southern California fires — drop from about 250 feet, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Mr. Mattiacci said that he often feels pressure as he looks down from the cockpit at homes and structures under threat, knowing his job is to help save them. And if the fire retardant doesn’t land where it’s needed, he added, during a fast-moving fire, “there might not be another chance.”

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Germany’s economy shrank for a second straight year in 2024, underlining the severity of the downturn facing Europe’s manufacturing powerhouse.

The Federal Statistics Office said on Wednesday that Europe’s largest economy contracted by 0.2 per cent last year, after shrinking by 0.3 per cent in 2023. Economists had expected a decline of 0.2 per cent.

“Germany is experiencing the longest stagnation of its postwar history by far,” said Timo Wollmershäuser, economist at Ifo, a Munich-based economic think-tank, adding that the country was also underperforming significantly in an international comparison.

Confirmation that Germany is suffering one of the most protracted economic crises in decades comes six weeks ahead of a crucial snap election.

Campaigning has been dominated by the spectre of deindustrialisation, crumbling infrastructure and whether or not the country should abandon a debt brake that constrains public spending.

Friedrich Merz, head of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union who is likely to be Germany’s next chancellor, is campaigning on a reform agenda, promising to cut red tape and taxes and dial back welfare benefits for people who are not working.

While private sector output contracted, government consumption rose sharply by 2.6 per cent compared with 2023.

Ruth Brand, president of the Federal Statistics Office, blamed “cyclical and structural pressures” for the poor performance, pointing to “increasing competition for the German export industry, high energy costs, an interest rate level that remains high and an uncertain economic outlook.”

In the three months to December, output fell by 0.1 per cent compared with the third quarter.

Robin Winkler, chief economist for Germany at Deutsche Bank, said the contraction in the fourth quarter came as a “surprise” and was “concerning”.

“If this is confirmed, the economy would have lost further momentum by the end of the year,” he said, suggesting this was probably driven by “political uncertainty in Berlin and Washington”.

The Bundesbank said last month that stagnation was set to continue this year, predicting growth of just 0.1 per cent and warning that a trade war with the US would trigger another year of economic contraction.

US president-elect Donald Trump has pledged to impose blanket tariffs of up to 20 per cent on all US imports.

Germany is struggling with a crisis in its automotive industry fuelled by Chinese competition and an expensive transition to electric cars, alongside high energy costs and tepid consumer demand.

Output in manufacturing contracted by 3 per cent, the statistics office said on Wednesday, while corporate investment fell by 2.8 per cent.

Germany has in effect seen no meaningful economic growth since the start of the pandemic, with industrial production hovering more than 10 per cent below its peak while unemployment has started to rise again after it fell to record lows.

Pam Bondi, Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, is expected to face scrutiny on Wednesday during the first day of her confirmation hearing about her ability to resist the White House from exerting political pressure on the justice department.

The hearing, before the Senate judiciary committee, comes at a crunch time for the department, which has faced unrelenting criticism from Trump after its prosecutors charged him in two federal criminal cases and is about to see Trump’s personal lawyers in those cases take over key leadership positions.

Bondi, the first female Florida attorney general and onetime lobbyist for Qatar, was not on the legal team defending Trump in those federal criminal cases. But she has been a longtime presence in his orbit, including when she worked to defend Trump at his first impeachment trial.

She also supported Trump’s fabricated claims of election fraud in 2020, which helped her become Trump’s nominee for attorney general almost immediately after Matt Gaetz, the initial pick, withdrew as he found himself dogged by a series of sexual misconduct allegations.

That loyalty to Trump has raised hackles at the justice department, which prides itself on its independence from White House pressure and recalls with a deep fear how Trump in his first term ousted top officials when they stopped acquiescing to his demands.

Trump replaced his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, after he recused himself from the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia and, later, soured on his last attorney general, Bill Barr, after he refused to endorse Trump’s false 2020 election claims.

Bondi is also expected to be questioned about her prosecutorial record as the Florida attorney general and possible conflicts of interest arising from her most recent work for the major corporate lobbying firm Ballard Partners.

During her tenure as Florida attorney general, in 2013, Bondi’s office received nearly two dozen complaints about Trump University and her aides have said she once considered joining a multi-state lawsuit brought on behalf of students who claimed they had been cheated.

As she was weighing the lawsuit, Bondi’s political action committee received a $25,000 contribution from a non-profit funded by Trump. While Trump and Bondi both deny a quid pro quo, Bondi never joined the lawsuit and Trump had to pay a $2,500 fine for violating tax laws to make the donation.

As the chair of Ballard’s corporate regulatory compliance practice, Bondi lobbied for major companies that have battled the justice department she will be tasked with leading, including in various antitrust and fraud lawsuits.

Bondi was a county prosecutor in Florida before successfully running for Florida attorney general in 2010 in part due to regular appearances on Fox News.