Brandenburg's Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU) speaks during a press conference. © Soeren Stache/dpa/Archivbild
Brandenburg's Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU) has called on the federal government to provide more support in clearing ammunition-contaminated areas in view of the particular burden on the state. He would be happy if the federal government did more here, but so far there has been no feedback, said Stübgen late Tuesday afternoon in the forest fire area near Jüterbog.
Jüterbog - No other federal state is considered to be as heavily contaminated with ammunition as Brandenburg. The SPD and CDU parliamentary groups in the state parliament are also pushing for more federal funds to clear ammunition in the fight against forest fires.
At Jüterbog, there has been a fire for almost a week on a former military training area, which is heavily contaminated with ammunition. That's why the fire brigade can't get directly to the sources of the fire.
Stübgen does not consider the use of fire-fighting helicopters to be necessary at present. "We don't have the situation we had with the five major fires last year," the interior minister said. "As long as it's not necessary, we don't want to spend the costs." Should the fire get out of hand, for example due to special wind events, it would be possible to extinguish the fire very quickly with helicopters, even from the air. "Now you have to wait until it burns down and the fire has no more food."
The fire at Jüterbog spread only moderately on Tuesday, a cooler day with many clouds. The fire brigade continues to try to keep the situation under control from protective strips and prevent the fire from spreading to other areas.
Christian Görke (Left), a member of the Bundestag from Brandenburg, called on the federal government to purchase a national firefighting aircraft squadron. "It is fatal for our state that we still do not have a powerful firefighting squadron," he said on Tuesday.
The federal government does not currently consider its own fire-fighting aircraft squadron to be necessary, said Interior Minister Stübgen. The focus is on helicopter operations, which have proven themselves time and again. "But that doesn't mean that it has to stay that way for the next 50 years," said the CDU politician. "As a country, we would simply be overwhelmed to set up and maintain our own firefighting aircraft squadron."
Agriculture Minister Axel Vogel (Greens), who also came to Jüterbog, said it would be bad for climate protection if forests were to burn down and CO2 bound with them would be released back into the atmosphere. It is a problem for an environment and nature conservation minister "to watch it at all." But in view of the ammunition load, it is not responsible to send people to the area to extinguish the fire. "You also have to have the patience to watch it burn down." Agriculture Minister Vogel wants to promote forest conversion in Brandenburg with more deciduous trees for better protection against forest fires. Dpa