A 146-100 would be a good candidate; lots of lift at low speed, very maneuverable (ailerons and roll spoilers), low control forces, good view from the flight deck, etc. Special characteristics in the low speed configuration are that it goes where it is pointing i.e. it flies more nose-down than conventional aircraft; also great steep approach capability; a 6 deg civil approach should give near 9 deg down in operational use.
Good load carrying capability; one Alaskan operator had ‘fish bins’ (dry ice) in the cabin and BAE did some studies for under floor fuel tanks. There may be some water dump capability from the gear bay area (gear down) as the rear bulkhead is the front of the rear hold and the top is the cabin floor. The STA version also proved the capability of airborne opening a sliding (up and over) rear door and a side freight door would enable easy fitting of large water drums.
The 146-200 and -300 are not so different, both have steep approach clearances and at low level the change in thrust/wt ratio is not significant. In some cases the -300 has better performance than the -200; also the larger aircraft have a greater weight carrying capability than the -100. The core of the fan engines are based on the (T55?) helicopter engine thus should be very responsive, but only expect military life times if high EGT ops are maintained, but these should not be required at low level as excellent (relative to turbo props) climb performance is available at max derate.