Wearing the new respiratory protection masks and training for the squad: The Eglingen fire brigade made both possible - despite Corona.
Egling
- the fire brigade has to be there when there's a fire - literally and figuratively.
But creating the conditions for operational readiness around the clock is anything but easy at the moment.
This is shown by two examples from the Egling fire department.
It took a lot of imagination and discipline to be able to maintain normal operations despite Corona.
The respiratory protection equipment in Egling is getting on in years.
The first new devices were procured in 2020.
But how should the 100 respiratory equipment wearers be trained?
Good advice was expensive.
"Since some devices are due for a major overhaul in spring, we had to act, otherwise we would have ended up without breathing apparatus at some point," reports Stefan Kießkalt, spokesman for the district fire brigades and himself a member of the Eglinger Wehr.
So a corona-compliant concept was developed.
The effort is enormous
In a first step, the equipment wearers received a special handout with QR codes, which made it possible to watch short learning videos.
In a second step, face-to-face training with an FFP2 mask and sufficient distance was brought together.
“The nice weather played our cards in the last few days, so that this instruction could take place outdoors,” said Kießkalt.
In this way, the participant has the chance to wear breathing apparatus again after almost a year and to get used to the handling.
A lap to the elementary school and back is completed as a “little stress exercise”.
"The effort over six weeks is enormous," says Kießkalt.
The modular squad man training (MTA) also presented the fire brigade with a real challenge.
Actually, it should have taken place at the beginning of January, but because of Corona, that was out of the question.
"For the 15 young firefighters, this would have meant that their almost two-year training period would be extended indefinitely," said Kießkalt.
Also read: Stefan Kießkalt, new spokesman for the fire brigades
That is why the three MTA trainers, Werner Martin (Thanning), Sebastian vom Hagen (Deining) and Florian Ruppel (Egling) worked with district fire chief Marc Vopelius to develop a concept: All content was prepared in such a way that it could be offered in online training.
“An option that is rarely found in the fire department.
But special times require special solutions, ”said the spokesman.
The MTA online training has been held twice a week since the first week of March.
The theoretical training should last until the end of the Easter holidays.
Then the theoretical knowledge has to be put into practice.
"We hope that we are lucky and can get into the practice on time," says Kießkalt.
"At the moment the chances are good."