For almost 10 years now, @fire has been involved in train­ing its members in supra-regional forest and vege­ta­tion fire­fight­ing, and as a result now has special forces perma­nently on standby.

Fire­fight­ing crews (hand crews) to fight forest fires:

@fire has fully oper­a­tional and trained self-suffi­cient fire­fight­ing teams, trained in the vari­ous tech­niques of fight­ing forest fires and specif­i­cally for over­seas operations.

These crews are special­ized in

the protec­tion of houses (struc­ture protection)
the rapid initial attack of a fire source, if neces­sary also by helicopter
work­ing directly on the flame front (hot lining)
work­ing indi­rectly on the fire front by creat­ing protec­tive aisles and burn­ing out these aisles (burnout)

The advan­tage of this crew is its quick readi­ness for use, easy trans­port and high mobil­ity. This form of deploy­ment has proven its worth not only in regions that are diffi­cult to access. In combi­na­tion with water drops from airplanes / heli­copters and, if the terrain is acces­si­ble, with fire-fight­ing vehi­cles, a hand crew can then develop its full power.

Rapid oper­a­tional readi­ness is ensured by the fact that all oper­a­tional mate­ri­als such as hand tools, motor­ized chain saws, small pumps with hoses and fittings, commu­ni­ca­tions and oper­a­tional logis­tics are packed in trans­port boxes for trans­port and are always ready for use.
A hand crew consists of 10 to 20 members, depend­ing on the situation.

@fire works closely with coop­er­a­tion part­ners in the field of airborne fire­fight­ing. Direct contact can be made if needed.

Special­ists:
Further­more, @fire has other special­ists (aerial observers, expert advi­sors and lead­ers, controlled burn­ing/­counter-fire special­ists) that can be deployed in unison or indi­vid­u­ally to provide support.

Bilder des Vorauskommandos

Bereits am vergangenen Samstag ist der @fire-Einsatzleiter als Vorauskommando in Vila Real eingetroffen. Er wurde umgehend mit den lokalen Kräften eingesetzt. So konnte er sich ein erstes Bild von der nicht ungefährlichen Lage machen...