In the Local Group few Hɪɪ regions exhibit nebular Heɪɪ λ4686 emission, indicative of unusually high excitation. Approximately eight such nebulae are known, all located in low metallicity environments (IC 1613, SMC, LMC) except the Galactic ring nebula G2.4+1.4 (Esteban et al. 1992). The best studied case is the nebula S 3 surrounding the WO3 star DR 1 (Garnett et al. 1991, Kingsburgh &: Barlow 1995). Except for two cases (N 44C, N159 F; Stasińska et al. 1986, Pakull & Angebault 1986) the nebulae are asociated with early WN (cf. Niemela et al. 1991) and WO stars.

So far approximately 50 to 60 extragalactic Hɪɪ regions showing nebular Heɪɪ λ4686 are known (Campbell et al. 1986, Izotov et al. 1994, 1997a). Most of them are found in H II galaxies, BCDs and related objects from low metallicity samples used for determinations of the primordial helium abundance. The most prominent case is the low metallicity (Z) record holder I Zw 18. He II emission is typically on the order of 1-5 % of Hβ.

Different ionization mechanisms (photoionization by hot stars, shock excitation, photoionization by X-rays) have been put forward to explain the required hard spectrum (Garnett et al. 1991).

The first quantitative approach to address this problem are the evolutionary synthesis models of Schaerer (1996) and Schaerer & Vacca (1997), which include well tested evolutionary tracks and recent spherically expanding non-LTE atmosphere models appropriate for WR and O stars.