As wildfires rage across the province, there is a new push to add one of BC’s famed Martin Mars water bombers to the effort.

The organizer of an online petition aimed at getting one of them back in the air again, Chris Alemany, says when it comes to fighting fires, the Martin Mars are second to none.

“These things are huge. 7,200 gallons that they can drop at a time versus 500 gallons for what they were replaced with.”

He says it could be doing a lot more than just sit idle in Port Alberni. “You’re looking at $700,000 a year to have it on standby, you know, insurance policy, versus $3 million for the replacements.”

The problem is, the Philippine Mars is essentially retired, but Alemany says the Hawaii Mars could still be used.

The change-dot-org petition to bring it back gathered more than three-thousand signatures in its first two days.

“It started out on Facebook just talking about it and the local radio station picked up on it and then we made a petition and then off it went.”