Thaining - Alarm for the fire brigades in the vicinity of Thaining: “Fire 4 carpentry at Heßlaberg 8” - that was the alarming emergency call one evening in October at 6.30 p.m. - but luckily it was only for a large-scale exercise.
It was the first major exercise since the outbreak of the corona pandemic.
However, they acted like in an emergency: they disengaged immediately.
When the Thaining fire brigade arrived, an alleged fire was discovered in the northern part of the Höfle factory hall.
In addition, a total of eight people in the smoky building complex were considered missing.
Second fire brigade commander Harald Baur, who was in charge of the operation, instructed first of all to form several operational sections, in which the other alerted fire brigades from Pflugdorf-Stadl, Obermühlhausen, Issing, Ludenhausen, Hofstetten and the use of the turntable ladder from Dießen were also divided.
"During the exercise, the first thing to do was to fight the source of the fire and prevent the fire from spreading further," said Christian Finsterwalder, First Commander of the Thaining Fire Brigade, who prepared the exercise in advance.
"Our firefighters also had to lay a long stretch of hose to supply the turntable ladder and divert traffic to protect the emergency services," reports Finsterwalder.
Further requirements of the operational exercise, in which there were also "injured" people: to coordinate the internal attack to fight the fire and above all to rescue the missing people under heavy respiratory protection and to take care of the rescued people until they are handed over to the rescue service.
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Rescuing injured people under difficult conditions also had to be practiced in the carpentry.
© Schmiel
At 7.45 p.m. the “mission” ended after the last missing person had been rescued, Finsterwalder continued.
The more than 100 emergency services of the fire brigades involved, 16 of them with heavy respiratory protection, were able to "handle the exercise" overall well, "says the first commander.
The assigned exercise observers as well as the participants of the district fire inspection, mostly deployed as section leaders, came to the same conclusion during the debriefing at the exercise site.
Extras and make-up
This exercise was important in order to practice cooperation between the neighboring fire brigades in the event of a major incident, ”explains Finsterwalder.
"We would like to thank the involved injured statists, the construction and make-up staff as well as the Höfle carpentry with managing director Holger Höfle for making the company premises available," he emphasizes.
An important prerequisite for making such an exercise look real.