15 members in the District Fire Inspectorate: In addition to District Fire Commissioner Helmut Schweickart (photo above, right), there are Michael Weigert, Florian Marquard, Maximilian Wastian, Mathias Duensing, Florian Gebauer, Dr. Franz Matheis, Alfred Hörmann, Jochen Thorn, Bernhard Spazierer, Maximilian Schmid, Martin Wastian, Andreas Pain and Thomas Schade (from left). Klaus Ringhoff is absent from the performance due to scheduling reasons. © Photographer: Andrea Jaksch
The new county fire inspection for the county is almost complete. District Fire Commissioner Helmut Schweickart has redistributed responsibilities, including an expert on drone use. There are also new offers for training.
District – District Fire Commissioner Helmut Schweickart has been in office for almost six months, and now he has almost complete his team. These days he presented the new district fire inspection and goals for the coming years. Schweickart, previously district fire inspector and for many years second commander in Starnberg, had been elected after Peter Bauch had made his office available. Some have remained from the inspection at that time. Long-standing members such as Anton Graf, Josef Kraus or Tobias Völkl are no longer with us – for various reasons. All members have decades of experience in the fire department.
The areas of responsibility in the district have been redistributed. One or two municipalities are looked after by a district fire chief (KBM, see graphic), who supports the fire brigades on site during larger operations. Schweickart has turned the previous two inspector areas (KBI) – the next higher level – into three. "Otherwise, the area of operation of a district fire inspector would be very large," he says. The KBM and KBI are involved in many operations.
The tasks are also precisely distributed. Among other things, district fire inspector Michael Weigert (Krailling) takes care of alarm planning, which directly affects the fire brigades on site. He is responsible for the changeover to digital alerts, which is probably planned for 2024 – so far this has been done via an old radio system. The firefighters' beeps have to be replaced for this, which costs the municipalities money despite subsidies. The first test devices have been distributed, so that dead spots are to be found. He cannot prevent an "over-alarm", i.e. a lot of fire brigade for little use. The control center in Fürstenfeldbruck accepts the emergency call and has the information. This is crucial for which rescue workers are dispatched. For some issues, the inspection can intervene, for example: e-calls from cars. It is not uncommon for these to be triggered by children playing or in the workshop, so there is no accident. The strength of the fire brigades has been deliberately reduced to a tolerable level if there is an e-call but no further emergency call. In other words, there is enough immediately to be able to help if it is an accident.
District fire inspector Maximilian Wastian (Unterbrunn) will be responsible for the training in the future. First change: There is an online registration. 780 places in courses are on offer this year; from 2024, there will be even more, including for newly designed machinist and management assistant courses. 24 district trainers and just as many assistant trainers are volunteers. Another problem is that there are too few places at fire brigade schools – the 140 this year cover only a third of the demand.
District fire inspector Andreas Pain (Andechs) takes care of disaster control and the camps in Frieding and Machtlfing. District Fire Chief Klaus Ringhoff (Stockdorf) for respiratory protection training. The aim is to create a recognised training centre. The new training facility at the Krailling fire brigade is to be completed by the end of the year and will help to reduce the training backlog in this important area – after all, breathing apparatus wearers are indispensable in the event of fires and the like. District fire chief Jochen Thorn (Hechendorf), for example, takes care of drones, which can also be found more and more often in fire departments. "The success of the technology proves this system right," he says, referring to an almost finished concept of the rescue organizations (with BRK, DLRG) so that all drone pilots work according to the same standard.
Dr. Franz Matheis (Traubing) is responsible for the 42 youth and eight children's fire brigades, which together have more than 600 members. The numbers tend to be rising. Soon there will also be a commissioner for the children's militias, he announced.