That was close: the Kochel fire brigade extinguished a conflagration on Kesselberg on Sunday.
It was probably caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette butt.
Kochel am See - In fact, things could have turned out much worse if the incipient fire had not been discovered so quickly.
thanks to two attentive police officers.
As part of the support for the road bike race of the European Championship 2022 on Sunday, two police officers from the Oberbayern Süd police headquarters were deployed on the Kesselberg route of the B 11 to secure traffic.
Securing the road bike race: Police officers notice a burning smell
During the operation, the two officers who were stationed in the area of the so-called "Helmer Hütte" noticed a clear smell of smoke.
they then searched the surrounding area for a fire.
A few meters away from their location, they discovered a stump with a significant nest of embers.
Given the current drought and the associated high risk of forest fires, this could have spread very quickly to a large fire.
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The fire brigade used a lot of water to extinguish the embers.
© Fire Department Kochel am See
Despite the fire extinguisher: embers are spreading in the dry forest floor
The source of the fire was immediately extinguished with the fire extinguisher in the emergency vehicle.
However, by the time the Kochel fire brigade, which was immediately alerted, arrived and brought 20 emergency services, the embers had already spread through the dry forest floor.
Carelessly discarded cigarette butt could have started fire
The fire brigade used a large amount of water to extinguish the area to prevent an open fire from developing.
According to the police, the search for the cause of the fire revealed that it was very likely that a previously unknown person had carelessly thrown away a cigarette butt, which then led to the embers developing.
Police are investigating negligent arson
The police are investigating negligent arson.
The Kochel police asks for relevant information by calling 08041/76106-273.
By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our regular Bad Tölz newsletter.
In this context, the police are once again urgently asking you to exercise the greatest caution, especially in the current dry phase with a high risk of forest fires, and never throw away cigarette butts or light an open fire in the open air.
"In the current situation, this can lead to devastating fires, as can currently be observed in Saxon Switzerland," says Steffen Wiedemann, head of the Kochl department.
The Jochberg fire in 2017 was also caused by a carelessly lit fire
In addition, the police are reminding of the last serious forest fire in early 2017 in the municipal area, when a major fire with very high damage was caused by open fire on New Year's Eve.
At that time, the extinguishing work from the air took several days.
Hikers who wanted to watch the fireworks from above lit a campfire on the grass-dry ground on the Graseck/Jochberg, which spread almost immediately.
You can find more current news from the region around Bad Tölz at Merkur.de/Bad Tölz.