Despite the size and number of fires this year, Germany has escaped comparatively lightly due to the dense network of mostly volunteer fire brigades and the high level of commitment of the emergency services on the ground. In view of the trend of increasingly severe and frequent forest fires, the aid organisation @fire, which specialises among other things in national and international vegetation firefighting, believes that there is an urgent need to improve the forest firefighting capabilities of all those involved and to network them more closely. “Large forest fires know no borders and no bureaucracy,” says @fire chairman Jan Südmersen in his summary of the 2022 fire season.
@fire is a relief organisation that has specialised in fighting large forest fires nationwide and internationally for 20 years. This summer, @fire has been requested to support regional response teams on numerous large forest fires. On the ground, the relief organisation has advised leaders on the ground, contained and fought fires with little or even no water, carried out difficult post-fire operations, coordinated aerial operations and arranged for specialised equipment. With their yellow protective clothing, the special forces were often conspicuous splashes of colour at the scenes of operations.
In 2022, @fire was requested for forest fires in Treuenbrietzen, Beelitz, Bad Liebenwerda, Munster military training area, Penela (Portugal), Bad Saarow, Falkenberg, Saxon Switzerland, Berlin - Gruneawald, Gironde (France) and in the Harz Mountains / Brocken. Based on their experience, the forest fire experts have identified four topics where the most urgent need for action exists.
1. the leadership of the emergency forces must be improved
Even a large forest fire must not be an internal emergency for the fire fighters. This requires good mission preparation, practical training of leaders, who can then control operations that last for weeks in a well-staffed and technically well-equipped command. However, this is usually the task of the districts, many of which are not able to do this in terms of personnel and the level of experience and training of the managers varies greatly. This could be remedied by state-wide or nationwide command support units and staffs, as is the case in the USA. So far, this has failed due to the federal system and often also due to parochial thinking among many of those involved. It is now time to create the human resources to change laws, improve procedures and training, and set up such units with federal and state support.
2. the coordination of fire fighters must be improved
Due to the different responsibilities and the numerous parties involved, different points of view and sensitivities of politicians and administrators, managers of the police, federal police, forestry authorities, federal armed forces, THW, private aid organisations as well as forest owners, spontaneous helpers and various experts must first be discussed, balanced and processed in the direction of good cooperation. It is completely irrelevant for the success of the mission which organisation or authority is represented - it really only depends on which functions are to be filled.
In the end, after some time, it works somehow and with the goodwill of all involved, but of course this is not a person-independent, secure and resilient foundation for the disasters to come. Here, the composition of the staffs and the work processes must be improved and thus standardised.
3. the fire fighters’ toolbox must be expanded
The great strength of the fire brigades in Germany is that, compared to other countries, they can respond to forest fires much more quickly and effectively with a large number of fire engines. This almost always prevents small forest fires from becoming big ones, but at the same time it is also a problem: if you only have a hammer as a tool, every problem looks like a nail. Effective forest firefighting requires not only fire engines, but also helicopters, foot troops, pre-fire and later counter-fire, heavy bulldozers. These special resources are currently not even available for civil protection, but have to be requested from various authorities or organised from the private sector. It is now time for civil protection at federal and state level to set up its own special units for supra-regional deployment.
4. fire-fighting aircraft - look good, but…
The incident commander of a southern European fire brigade only has to send a radio message when he needs a fire-fighting helicopter (or a fire-fighting aircraft). A head of operations in Germany often needs a complicated and time-consuming administrative process to do this, with faxes and phone calls, waking up on-call staff, written authorisations, etc. - depending on the federal state. It would significantly improve aerial firefighting if these bureaucratic hurdles were removed and helicopters were available more quickly. But at the moment the public discussion is very much focused on fire-fighting aircraft. However, these only produce very expensive rain if they, too, are not on the ground fast enough and are also not led and deployed in a tactically sensible way.
For the use of aircraft, therefore, their rapid deployment and safe availability must be improved, as well as ensuring smooth integration with the forces on the ground - whether helicopter or aircraft.
Experience at home and internationally
Aktuell verfügt @fire über 400 ausgebildete Einsatzkräfte, die neben einer guten körperlichen Fitness, eine ergänzende Ausbildung sowie vielfach über spezielle Kenntnisse und Erfahrungen im In- und Ausland verfügen. Daher ist @fire derzeit in Deutschland eine der wenigen Organisationen, die die Führung und Koordination im taktisch richtigen Einsatz von Luftfahrzeugen aller Typen bieten kann. Darüber hinaus beteiligt sich @fire seit vielen Jahren mit verschiedenen Fachleuten an der Mitarbeit in deutschen Fachgremien, vom Normenausschuss Löschfahrzeuge, über den Arbeitskreis Waldbrand im Deutschen Feuerwehrverband (DFV) bis hin zur länderoffenen Arbeitsgruppe nationaler Waldbrandschutz.
In addition, @fire has so far trained more than 200 fire brigades in the special features of forest firefighting in the preventive field. By the way: All activities of @fire in the field of forest firefighting are carried out by its members on a purely voluntary basis and independent of government support.
