DThe rattling of the helicopters can be heard from afar, and it gets louder the closer you get to the otherwise idyllic holiday resort of Schmilka in Saxon Switzerland. Every half minute, the helicopters hover over the mighty sandstone cliffs, fly down to the Elbe, where they immerse their large tanks, which can hold up to 3,000 liters of water. Then, lined up like a string of pearls, they quickly gain height again and turn to the right of the Elbe into rear Saxon Switzerland, to where the forest is on fire. Up to 15 helicopters from the Bundeswehr, the police and private companies are taking part in the rescue operation, and the community of Schmilka doesn’t seem like a migratory place these days, but like the center of a massive military operation. And yet it is probably a David vs. Goliath battle when they drain what little water there is over the vast area of fire.
For a week now, the emergency services have been fighting the flames that spread from across the border, from the Bohemian Switzerland National Park, last Monday. For a while it even seemed as if the emergency services, who were tirelessly fighting the fire, had the situation under control, but then shifting winds fanned the flames again.
The sun will soon be out again
And rain, so far it was only announced, but then again and again it didn’t happen. On Monday, however, a moderate downpour descends, precisely at the moment when Christine Lambrecht arrives in Saxon Switzerland. The Federal Minister of Defense wants to get a personal impression of the situation, which the soldiers have played a major role in eliminating. “The Bundeswehr is in action when it is called,” says Lambrecht after a sightseeing flight together with Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer over the crisis area. When their helicopter lands on the Elbe meadows, the sun is already shining again, or rather: it is scalding.
Lambrecht thanks the emergency services and promises to maintain the flights “even beyond the day” “until the danger is averted”. It doesn’t look like that at the moment. The approximately 350 emergency services fighting the flames on Monday made sure that they did not spread further for the time being. But above all the ground burns extensively and in places up to 50 centimeters deep, according to the operations center in Bad Schandau. Fighting these fires was a focus of the work on Monday, says Michael Kretschmer, who broke off his vacation at the weekend and drove to the forest fire areas in the south-east and north of the Free State. While the situation in northern Saxony is now under control, there is no end in sight in Saxon Switzerland, said Kretschmer.
In addition to the fire-fighting operations, the emergency services use hoes to break firebreaks in the ground, especially on the Großer Winterberg, the highest point in the national park. They then bring in a blanket of foam to contain the embers and reduce the high temperatures. The district’s crisis team also reassured residents on Monday who were concerned about possible toxic components in the foam.
This is not the case, but the remedy is effective against embers. For the residents and especially the tourism industry, the forest fire is another severe blow after they were only allowed to receive limited guests for two years due to Corona. The places behind the Bad Schandau National Park Center have not been evacuated, but normal holiday operations are out of the question, especially since the access roads are closed so as not to hinder the fire brigades, who have come from all over Saxony and other federal states to extinguish the fire to help.
Prime Minister Kretschmer thanks the many emergency services on Monday. “We see a country that is incredibly solidary,” he says. At the same time, after his second flight over the disaster area in three days, he said he was shaken. “You don’t even want to look. The fire has torn a gaping wound in the national park.” It is another one after the extreme drought of the past three years has already caused large areas of forest to wither. The dried-up spruce trunks can also be seen from the Elbe valley in Schmilka, in front of which the helicopters dip their orange water containers into the river.
More support for additional helicopters
A tour from picking up the water to putting it out takes three minutes on average. In addition, fire brigades have twice laid eight kilometers of hoses from the Elbe up into the forest fire area. “We can still do it with helicopters,” says Saxony’s Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU). However, fire-fighting aircraft, such as those used on the Czech side, could not refuel in the narrow Elbe valley. Schuster, in turn, had already written three fire-fighting helicopters into the state government’s budget draft in June.
Politically, this 77 million euro investment has been controversial in the black-green-red government, but after the fires this summer Schuster could probably order an entire fleet. However, Prime Minister Kretschmer also stated that he wanted to coordinate with Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt in order to build up a pool of aircraft and emergency vehicles for large-scale firefighting. The same had not been necessary for decades, but it is now used almost annually. “We have to invest in climate change adaptation,” says Kretschmer on Monday. After all, Lambrecht assured during the visit that the federal government would not charge the state for the use of the Bundeswehr.
