A Car In Flames, Soldiers Putting Out Fire In The Military Dock
Szöveg: László Szűcs | 2008. szeptember 16. 8:16Regional methodological exercise – the official name of the training held in the last week of August, with the participation of the staff of the Headquarters of the Fire Department of Budapest, and the warship crew of HDF 1st Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Warship Battalion (MH 1. HTHZ), in the Újpest military dock of the Hungarian Defence Forces. The purpose of the disaster management training was to put out fires breaking out on floating establishments, to locate underwater wrecks, and to rescue people from the water.
Major Zsolt Szilágyi, the deputy commander of the corps and a warship crew himself, informed the editorial staff of honvedelem.hu. We have learned that the firefighters and soldiers had built the training on an imaginary situation: on a river ferry transporting cars, one of the vehicles catches fire – the reasons are unknown – and another one falls in the water. The fire spreads to the vessel as well, and some passengers choose the water to escape from the flames. The headquarters of the fire department of the capital immediately alarm their fire vessel named Saint Florian, but until its arrival they ask one of the mine clearance boats of the HDF, which is nearby the scene, to help.
“Following the alarm our AM-31 boat called Dunaújváros immediately started to quench the flames of the burning car that had caught fire on the ferry, and after the arrival of the fire vessel another task was assigned to it, namely to locate the other vehicle that had fallen into the river," said Major Szilágyi, adding that they have managed to complete the latter task with the help of the three-dimensional depth sounder that was installed this year. They have located the sunken vehicle precisely in a few minutes, and forwarded the GPS coordinates to the divers of the firefighters, who drew out the car rapidly.“With this joint exercise we have managed to prove that owing to this year’s technical modernization, warship AM-31 and the crew serving on it have become capable of cooperating with the firefighters successfully," said the deputy commander of the corps when evaluating the exercise.
Major Szilágyi also told us that putting out fire wasn’t a new assignment for the warship crew, since they practice the tasks resulting from a fire alarm on a regular basis, as a part of their professional preparation: on the one hand the so-called self-quenching – when they have to extinguish fire on their own vessel -, and also the quenching of various flaming objects floating in the water. Naturally, they have the necessary equipment for that on the warships as well: in addition to handheld fire extinguishers and the mobile fire pump, there are also hydrants on the bows and the quarterdecks.
The warship crew have participated in the joint exercise not only with their mine clearance vessel called Dunaújváros, for the provision of technical support, namely the pontoon piece symbolizing the ferry, and the BMK motorboat that was moving it, was the task of the soldiers.
Major Zsolt Szilágyi told us that the successful exercise has encouraged both the warship crew and the firefighters to plan to repeat the joint disaster management training next year. But instead of the ’shelter’ of the Újpest docks, next time they will be practicing in the open water, that is on the Danube.
