A street full of firefighters

Around 80 firefighters from five brigades moved out to Buch am Buchrain for a large-scale exercise.

The scenario: a cellar was on fire, people were missing.

Buch am Buchrain

- major alarm in Buch: The evening idyll on Monday was suddenly interrupted when the siren rang at 6.45 p.m.

The fire in the basement at Hauptstrasse 5 was so bad that four more had to be deployed in addition to the Buch fire brigade.

The large contingent attracted numerous curious and concerned residents.

However, it was just an exercise.

"Due to Corona, large-scale exercises were recently not possible," says district fire chief Christian Albert.

That is why he was all the more pleased that the action in Buch could now be organized as part of the fire protection week together with local commander Thomas Steidler.

Around 80 firefighters from Pastetten, Reithofen-Harthofen, Walpertskirchen, Forstern and Buch were in action with ten vehicles.

The scenario of the one and a half hour exercise: a cellar fire, a smoky house, eight people inside.

One of them was in a panic for her missing brother, a man trapped on the balcony.

Then a firefighter was injured.

“So an attempt was made to put the head of operations under psychological pressure,” explains Albert.

The fire brigades, especially their commanders, were required to communicate with one another.

“On the whole, it went well, but there are of course little things to improve,” says Steidler after the exercise.

Albert agrees and adds: “Small mistakes can also be made here.” He mentions the development of the emergency services' own dynamics or communication as still room for improvement.

The campaign was also important for some completely new group leaders and drivers.

In any case, the large-scale exercise should be repeated as soon as possible, says Albert.

"That is now even more important at this time." The areas with potential for optimization that were noticed in the book will subsequently be addressed by the district fire inspection even more strongly in the basic training in the future.

Markus Ostermaier