A total of 76 forces from the special forest firefighting service from Lower Austria are on their way to the forest fire areas in the French region of Bordeaux. The first train with twelve vehicles and 27 men started on Thursday at 10:00 p.m., another vehicle with two emergency services will follow today and 47 emergency services will be flown to the operational area by charter flight from Vienna Airport.
State Fire Brigade Commander Dietmar Fahrafellner emphasized in a short briefing on Thursday that one of the most challenging foreign missions in history will await the Austrian helpers. Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania and Sweden have also sent support to France, where massive fires are raging in several regions. The aim of the Lower Austrians is in the most severely affected department of Gironde in the southwest of the country, specifically the municipality of Hostens in the administrative district of Bordeaux, where the forest fires are currently blazing around 6,000 hectares.
The arrival time of the train, which consists mainly of forest fire vehicles, is expected to be 30 hours. The focus of operations is particularly on firefighting by ground units, as there are currently only few or no firefighting aircraft available in Europe, the state fire brigade command informed. Its state management staff (LFÜST) was also convened to coordinate the operation and has been permanently staffed since Thursday afternoon. The experts in the respective subject areas support the deployment from Tulln.
Head of operations for the Lower Austrian emergency services, as was the case with the major fires around the Rax area and with the foreign mission in North Macedonia, is state fire brigade councilor Josef Huber. The preliminary deployment time was estimated at one week. Depending on the situation, however, the duration can still change. More than a thousand French firefighters are deployed in the Gironde alone, and 10,000 nationwide.