Basic information on fire units (Table)Basic information on fire units (Table)

Cumulative information on incidents in regions (Table)

Incidents with intervention of military fire unitsIncidents with intervention of military fire units (Table)

Based on the Fire Law No. 133 from 1985, in later versions, fire supervision in premises under responsibility of the Ministry of Defence is provided by fire protection bodies of the MoD, according to Article 85a. Military fire units operate as fire units according to Article 65a of the Fire Law. Within the Czech Army there is total of 479 firefighters in 22 fire stations. Military Fire Supervision practise fire supervision of military objects, premises, in military bases and in companies established by MoD, according to Article 31 if the Fire Law.

Survey on fire units interventions in districts and regionsSurvey on fire units interventions in districts and regions (Table)

Portion of types of fire units in total number of incidents
 

• FRS CR – 63.8% of all interventions. Total of 239 fire units filed to Dec 31, 2009.
• Municipal VFU – 29.1% of all interventions. Total of 7,326 fire units of several categories: II – 202, III – 1,339, V – 5,785. From the total number as many as 771 (10.5 %) fire units operated only in one intervention, and 4,483 of them (61.2 %) didn’t operate at all. High portion of municipal VFU interventions were in fires, natural disasters, and in traffic accidents.
• Company FRS – 6.7% of all interventions. Total of 113 fire units, 19 of them are military fire units within the Czech Army that operate as fire units in military objects and premises. Main interventions: technical / technological assistance, and also false alarms. Many interventions of technical assistance were agreed before, and though were not involved into the statistics.
• Company VFU – 045% of all interventions. Total of 256 fire units. Main interventions: fires, false alarms.

Total number of firefighters in the Czech Republic filed to Dec 31, 2009:
9,419 professional firefighters with FRS CR (6,599 of them placed in regional fire units of FRS) and 1,133 of civil employees with FRS CR   2,430 professional firefighters with companies, incl. 468 military firefighters 74,205 voluntary firefighters both municipal and companies.

Number of particular activities of fire units (Table)

Interventions of particular types of fire units by incident distanceInterventions of particular types of fire units by incident distance (Table)

Adverse influences of interventions (Table)

FOREST FIRES 2009 (FF09)

From 18 to 20 September 2009, the FOREST FIRES 2009 exercise took place in the Hradiště military training area in Doupov Mountains. The exercise, organized by the Karlovy Vary FRS, was aimed at fighting forest fires and wildfires. Forest fires and wildfires (hereafter referred to as "forest fires") belong to most difficult in terms of conditions of location fire and liquidation. Very often, the area of the fire is large, and hard-to-access, and fire extinguishing itself is typical for water shortages and insufficient number of forces and equipment on-site. In spite of the developed network of forest roads in the Czech Republic, inaccessibility to the incident place is usually caused by the lack of load capacity of terrain, and by other off-road conditions (slope unavailability for different types of fire equipment, etc.). Therefore, the goal of this exercise was to verify the deployment of all available technical resources usable for fighting forest fires, and test out their coordinated deployment. Large number of fire units was involved, and fire unit detachments from other regions, including kits for long-distance transport of water (SOMATIC Hytrans Fire System), the cross-border deployment of THW (Technisches Hilfswerk), German rescue units, use of aircraft and helicopters for aerial firefighting, the SPOT crawler water tender, and creating of fire- lines, transport of goods and persons by helicopters to the inaccessible terrain, trying massive rearrangement of forces and equipment, including organization and coordination of transit of these forces and equipment for a few days, and operating humanitarian base for receiving evacuees.

The largest exercise ever organized in the Czech Republic was attended by 196 pieces of fire equipment and nearly 500 firefighters and paramedics. Additional to firefighters from MI, DG FRS, and from 5 regional FRSs, in the exercise participated the Czech police, EMS, and the already mentioned German rescuers from the THW. Special forces from Hlučín Rescue Unit moved to the training area on its own as well, equipped with heavy tank fire-fighting equipment including the SPOT crawler water tender and recovery equipment. Rescuers from Hlučín transported also the mobile humanitarian base for receiving evacuees to the place of exercises.

Třebíč 2009
On 16th September 2009, one of the biggest tactical exercises of IRS bodies of the Vysočina Region was held, attended by over 300 people - professional and volunteer firefighters, policemen, rescue workers, soldiers, hospital staff, law enforcement proceedings, students, staff offices and other services. Aim of the exercise was to verify the process and tactics of the IRS components for joint action on rescue and liquidation work of the processed type of work for STC - 04/IZS accident checklist, i.e. aircraft accident. Next, to check connection between the components of IRS, to check up activities of the operational centres of individual components of the IRS, to determine the possible extent and level of cooperation among intervening IRS components, and to examine the traumatological plan of the Třebíč Hospital. The exercise also involved monitoring around the site and search injured persons from the air by a helicopter of the Air Rescue Services, and a helicopter of the Air Service of the Czech Police (SAR).

The exercise achieved its objectives and demonstrated that components of the IRS from the Vysočina Region are able to handle an event of such a large scale.


ROPA 2009
On 29th April 2009 an imaginary damage of the Družba pipeline and the Čepro pipeline occurred on the border of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This was the scenario of the ROPA 2009 international seminar, which took place in the border zone in districts of Hodonín and Břeclav (CZ) and Skalica (SK). The aim was to train cooperating ways of IRS operation centres in the deployment of units of IRS components and foreign forces and equipment, and to check up warning and notification system in the border area near the Morava River in rescue and liquidation work.

The exercise should also examine tactics of deployed IRS components for joint action, and to check up procedures in operations under emergency documentation, and next to test work of the incident commander staff in terms of cross-border cooperation, dealing with accidental water pollution. Also pipeline operators tested their own preparedness for emergency destruction during the exercise.

Total of 14 units of the Czech and Slovak firefighters, and units of the Czech Police, EMS, dispatch teams of the MERO ČR, Inc. company, the ČEPRO Inc. company, and the Dekonta, Inc. company, and other specialists and experts for liquidation of consequences of ecological accidents intervened on-site. Also the Hlučín Rescue Unit was checked up, especially its ability to provide meals during long-term interventions. Practical demonstrations of equipment and technology devices of the IRS bodies, the Dekonta, Inc. company, the REO AMOS, Ltd. company, and the Vodní zdroje Inc. company accompanied the exercise.

Evaluation of the results of the ROPA 2009 international and tactical exercise showed that the targets were fully met.

Dial emergency call is the most frequent way how to call for assistance or how to notice details important for safety. Emergency call works:

• continuously,
• for all citizens,
• throughout the territory,
• free of charge,
• in all telephone networks, and
• from any voice terminal equipment of telephone networks.

Citizens are used to calling for help this way and with development of mobile telephony the emergency call came continuously available for all and everywhere. Emergency Call is a service of the state, which provides protection of basic human rights – to protect life, health and property. Pursuant to information from an emergency call the IRS bodies begin its activities, especially they deploy units to the spot of reported events. This information is transmitted electronically as "data sentences” to the operational centres of the IRS bodies.

The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic receives emergency calls in the 150 National Emergency Call Number and in the 112 Single European Emergency Call Number. To receive emergency calls FRS CR operates a nationwide advanced telecommunications technology, deployed in 14 regional Call Centres. All emergency calls to 112, all emergency calls to 150 from mobile phones, and emergency calls to 150 from the telephone network of the most districts are dispatched through new technologies. Only in 12 districts emergency calls to 150 are still dispatched by the original technology. Last year the FRS CR received the 112 Award for technical solution for dispatching emergency calls from EENA, the European Emergency Number Association (the list is priced at http://www.eena.org/view/en/112events/Awards/2009.html).

Basic indicators (Table)

Values salvaged by fire units were 4.2 times higher then the direct loss.

Fires - review in 1995 - 2009 (Table)

Values salvaged in fires (Table)

Number of fatalities (D) and injured (I) in fires (Table)

Fires by districts and regions (Table)

Number of fires and losses by place of origin (Table)

Fire losses by ownership type (Table)

Fires - survey in branches (Table)

Industry (Table)

In 2000, 695 fires with total loss of CZK 672,253,100 occurred in industry, two persons died and other 55 were injured. Total of 62 major fire cases (with damage of CZK 1 million or more) caused total loss of CZK 415 million, i.e. only 9 % of fires caused 62 % of losses. Compared to 2008, the number of fires dropped by 4 %, and losses increased by 27%.

Forestry (Table)

In 2009, 556 fires with total loss of CZK 19,722,700 occurred in forestry, and 20 persons were injured. Total of four major fire cases (with damage of CZK 1 million or more) caused total loss of CZK 5.9 million, i.e. only 1 % of fires caused 30 % of losses. Compared to 2008, the number of fires increased by 10.3 %, losses increased by 32.2 %. Fires destroyed or damaged 178 hectares of forest growth.

Agriculture (Table)

In 2009, 562 fires with total loss of CZK 142,910,200 occurred in agriculture, 2 persons died and other 37 were injured. Total of 34 major fire cases (with damage of CZK 1 million or more) caused total loss of CZK 98 million, i.e. only 6 % of fires caused 68 % of losses. Compared to 2008, the number of fires dropped by 27.8 %, and losses dropped by 37 %.

Transport (Table)

In 2009, 2,310 fires with total loss of CZK 435,294,900 occurred in transport, 26 persons died and other 167 were injured. Total of 77 major fire cases (with damage of CZK 1 million or more), i.e. only 3.3 % of fires caused loss of CZK 250 million, i.e. 57 % of total losses. Compared to 2008, the number of fires increased by 1.1%, and losses increased by 3.2 %.