Lifeguard in action: Successful exercise of the fire brigades in Wies

Lifeguard in action: Successful exercise of the fire brigades in Wies

On November 9, 2024, the impressive total section of the section 02-Beiwald took place in a bright blue sky. This year the emergency services were challenged when they had to cope with a total of six demanding scenarios in the new Sulmtal-Koralm resource park and in surrounding areas. This training was particularly important to check the operational readiness and cooperative work of the various rescue teams.

Under the expert leadership of Abi Karl Koch, the practice scenarios were carefully prepared by experienced main fire inspectors, including HBI Friedrich Farnleitner, HBI Christian Schwender and HBI Christian Lind. At 1:00 p.m. and 1:15 p.m., 13 volunteer fire departments and a fire truck were alerted. These emergency services made their way to the Wies armory, which served as a central point of contact during the exercise and where the section leadership was housed. The task of this staff is to optimally plan the available firefighters and vehicles and assign them to the respective scenarios.

key scenarios of the exercise

The exercise provided for a variety of scenarios that aimed at different emergency situations:

• scenario 1: fire of a farm building with a person who was enclosed on the upper floor. Here the emergency services had to carry out a human rescue under heavy respiratory protection and combat the fire, whereby they had to move water from a hydrant about 250 meters away.
• scenario 2: A vehicle fire in the MSG carport required quick action. Here too, heavy breathing protection had to be worked, and the firefighters pulled water from the nearby Sulm.
• scenario 3: In the resource park, the emergency services had to save a missing and an injured person from container areas. This included first aid and the handover to the emergency services.
• scenario 4: A traffic accident between two cars, in which several people were trapped and a car smoked. Hydraulic rescue devices were required here to free the people and to secure the scene of the accident.
• scenario 5: A fire in the problematic room in which a person was missing. This situation required the search with heavy breathing protection and combating the fire in the inner attack.
• scenario 6: A worker had caught in for forest work. Here the rescue from rough terrain and the primary care was necessary.

After completing the exercise, Abi Karl Koch was able to draw a consistently positive balance at the final rally in the new Sulmtal-Koralm resource park. He emphasized that the green cross took part in the exercise with nine forces and five vehicles. A total of 165 comrades from 13 volunteer fire brigades and a fire truck were involved, which underlined the close cooperation and the networking of the rescue workers in the region. Such exercises are essential to deepen the knowledge and to ensure operational ability in an emergency. Further details on this topic are at www.fireworld.at read.