Fire in the Lüneburg Heath
The fire in the Lüneburg Heath in August 1975 destroyed the vegetation in the Lüneburg Heath and Wendland on more than 13,000 hectares by triggering around 300 fires, of which 8,000 hectares were wooded areas with predominantly coniferous forest and 5,000 hectares were moorland and heathland . Seven people were killed in the largest fire disaster in the Federal Republic of Germany to date . The forest fires in the districts of Gifhorn , Celle and Lüchow-Dannenberg were the main news in newspapers, radio and television news nationwide for over a week.
causes
The hot summer weather with August temperatures day after day up to 35 degrees Celsius with only 30% rel. Humidity favored the development and spread of fire due to the coniferous forests of the heathland, which dried out in a prolonged period of drought . In addition, many stocks of storm wood from the “Lower Saxony Orcan ” Quimburga on November 13, 1972 had not yet been removed. The sources of the fire were difficult to reach for fire fighters via the unpaved forest and heather trails. The fire was able to spread quickly in the monoculture of the pine forest and developed into a huge forest fire in parts of the Gifhorn and Celle districts. The Soviet weather satellite Meteor 22 photographed a smoke plume 250 kilometers long from orbit .
The cause of the fire was only clarified in a few cases. At one point it was assumed that sparks caused by a hot runner or the brakes of a rail vehicle were caused by negligent or deliberate arson at other places .
chronology
On August 8, 1975, a conflagration near the village of Stüde in the Südheide got out of control. The fire spread quickly and jumped over the Elbe Lateral Canal . In addition to the forest and moor fire between Stüde and Neudorf-Platendorf , other fires broke out in the area of the Südheide Nature Park near Gifhorn , Unterlüß , Eschede and Meinersen , which were difficult to contain. Here are the cornerstones of disaster management:
- On the first day of the fire disaster, on Friday, August 8th, 1975 at around 3 p.m. near the villages of Grußendorf , Stüde and Westerbeck in the district of Gifhorn, a forest and wildfire broke out on several square kilometers of forest and heathland, which resulted in one of the largest fire disasters in Germany.
- On the same day, a fire engine near Neudorf-Platendorf was run over by a fire roller, causing two firefighters to suffer serious burns. On August 8th, the Gifhorn district fire chief died of heart failure on the way home from an emergency trip.
- One of the fire sources in the district of Celle developed on August 9, 1975 at 12:50 p.m. from a fire in the Unterlüß / Schmarbeck area . This development already prompted the federal authorities in Bonn with preparatory plans for a rescue readiness.
- On August 10th at 12:30 p.m. a forest fire was reported between Eschede and Oldendorf (one of the later fire fighting situation centers) near Queloh (municipality of Eschede). Due to the predominant population of pine monocultures, the fire spread from there over an area of 5160 hectares of forest faster than it could be contained by the emergency services.
- On the late afternoon of August 10th, senior district director A. Bruns refrained from requesting help from Lüneburg, whereas the police asked his deputy Gerrit von Germar to set up his own operations center in Oldendorf because of the threatening situation. At around 10 p.m. Germar then requested 15 fire engines from Lüneburg for immediate help, too late and too few fire engines arrived to help.
- On August 10, a new forest fire developed on the B 188 near Meinersen, which spread towards the town. After the fire could be stopped shortly before the location, the wind suddenly turned and carried the 20 m high flames in a different direction. As a result, the escape route of a fire truck from the Wolfsburg- Fallersleben volunteer fire brigade was cut off. Five firefighters from Fallersleben and Hohenhameln were killed when they were trapped in flames with their emergency vehicle. They could not be rescued by a helicopter flying overhead, as it did not have a rescue winch.
- On August 10th, Hans-Rainer Frede , President of the Lüneburg district , declared the disaster . On the night of August 11, the federal government's disaster response support was called.
- On August 11, a deployment of the Bundeswehr and the Federal Border Guard was advocated in view of the spreading disaster. In addition to the first operations center in Oldendorf, a disaster department was deployed to the regional president in Lüneburg. Supported by two employees, he was supposed to ensure a central state deployment. In retrospect, this could be a trigger for subsequent competence problems.
- On August 11th, the first missions were flown with French fire-fighting aircraft.
- On August 12, 1975 at 11:55 a.m., another large fire broke out near Gorleben (Lüchow-Dannenberg district), which destroyed around 2,000 hectares of forest and arable land by 10:00 p.m. Fighting the fire turned out to be difficult from the start, as initially only one fire truck was available. Although this managed to break the top of the fire twice, due to the strong wind and the lack of other fire trucks, it was unable to stop the fire. At times the fire threatened to spread to GDR areas, which is why the GDR authorities were informed; because the wind was turned off, the flames did not spread. In the afternoon, the villages of Nemitz, Lanze and Prezelle had to be evacuated; however, they were spared the fire. Through the use of armored recovery vehicles and bulldozers of the German Armed Forces, reinforcement by units of the Federal Border Police and the help of the fire brigades advancing from North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, the fire situation was fought in stages - also through situation observation from helicopters - and the threat to the town of Trebel was averted. The fires could be contained until the evening hours. The area of fire did not increase significantly in this area in the following days.
- On the same day, there were increasing difficulties in competency, which arose on the one hand from questions of responsibilities, and on the other hand were based on the insistence on the management of situation and operations centers. In view of the compulsion to act, there was little time to clarify the subordinate and superordinate hierarchies of the emergency services. According to legal standards, management in the event of a disaster was solely with the State of Lower Saxony, including through federal units.
- On August 13th, 50 square kilometers to the northwest of Celle were also in flames, the small town of Hustedt is the most threatened.
- On the same day, Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Groß commissioned BGS Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Mally, who had been BGS General Kühne's deputy on site until then, with the overhead management to end the competence difficulties. This commission came close to a suspension of Kühne. The senior district director A. Bruns had previously been suspended from his duties; However, Bruns was called back to his duties three days later.
- On August 14, the Bundeswehr with Major General Wilhelm Garken , commander of the 1st Panzer Grenadier Division at the time, took over the command with BGS Lieutenant Colonel Mally as deputy and Bundeswehr Colonel Eberhard Wetter as Chief of Staff.
- In the meantime, Frankfurt's fire director E. Achilles had successfully acted on fire containment on a fire section with fire brigades and German armed forces. He had not been able to assert himself in the conflict of competence and therefore went to his fire department. Because of overcrowded radio channels, he operated a separate radio communication with his "Hesse control center".
- On the same day, the Bundeswehr began to create a large number of fire protection aisles with armored recovery vehicles and bulldozers, to secure the aisles and protect them from flying sparks caused by the use of water. For this purpose, a kilometer-long extinguishing water pipeline was laid by the Bundeswehr. Until then, the extinguishing water supply was uncoordinated, which is why the fire engines sometimes had to travel considerable distances from and to the fire sites.
- From August 15th to 17th, the extinguishing work on all fire sites was successfully continued and completed, coordinated by 1st PzGrenDiv under the direction of Major General Garken.
- On August 18, 1975, the disaster alert was lifted.
Fire fighting
Around 15,000 firefighters with 3,800 fire fighting vehicles from nine German federal states were involved in fire fighting . From all over Germany, other institutions and authorities such as the police , forest administrations and aid organizations such as the German Red Cross , Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe , Malteser Hilfsdienst and Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund were deployed in the fight against the forest fires in Lower Saxony.
Through the use of numerous units from the competence of the federal government (around 11,000 Bundeswehr soldiers, Federal Border Police officers, customs officers, helpers from the Technical Relief Agency (THW) ), massive use of technology was made possible. With all-terrain wheeled vehicles, 360 tanks and heavy clearance equipment (including armored recovery vehicles with clearing blades) as well as helicopters (mainly the German armed forces and police) as well as radio and telecommunications vehicles, fire breaks and improved management of the fire brigade prevented the fire from spreading further. Bw radio groups were assigned to the firefighting teams, who were familiar with the maps and ensured their orientation and guidance via radio. The management levels were also linked to one another by radio.
From the very beginning, Dutch soldiers and British military pioneers stationed in Germany were also involved in fighting fires unbureaucratically.
For the first time, three Canadair CL-215 fire-fighting aircraft from France were used to provide support. These only protected the small towns and farms in the fire area. They first fetched the water from the Steinhuder Meer , later they were filled with water at the Celle-Wietzenbruch air base.
Were also transport helicopter Sikorsky CH-53 used for erasing and also filled in Celle-Wietzenbruch with water.
In the army barracks in Wesendorf were airport fire engines stationed in the Rhineland.
The extinguishing work was made more difficult by the weather conditions, the poor road conditions and constantly changing winds. The biggest problem, however, was the acute lack of extinguishing water. Natural water extraction points such as ponds, gravel pits or rivers were usually far from the fire sites. Fire trucks had to travel long distances to fill up their water supplies.
Extinguishing action from the rail
For firefighters on the railway line between Eschede and Garßen also came rail Löschzug the German Federal Railroad used. The Hanover railway fire brigade had to be ready for disaster operations from August 12, 1975. Four tank cars with 45,000 liters of water each and one flat car were available for the formation of the rail fire engine .
The tank fire engine TLF 16 of the Hanover railway fire brigade was transported on the flat car; two tank wagons formed its water supply. In the meantime, a diesel locomotive drove with the other two cars to Uelzen in order to refill them there at the water crane . The use of this fire engine ended on August 16, 1975. For future cases, the Deutsche Bundesbahn stationed a total of four water cars along the Hanover-Celle railway line .
consequences
Over 8,000 hectares of forest and some buildings were destroyed. The cost of reforestation was estimated at the equivalent of 40 million euros. Immediately after the fire, the senior district director responsible for the Celle district, who was unable to cope with the problem, was replaced. The responsible official agencies in the Federal Republic were not prepared for large-scale incidents of this magnitude at that time. As a result, there was also a conflict of competence (until Major General Wilhelm Garken of the 1st Panzer Grenadier Division of the Bundeswehr took over the leadership) and misunderstandings at management level, which stood in the way of coordinated and effective work.
A memorial was erected at the scene of the accident where the five firefighters died . It is located in a wooded area east of Meinersen on the B 188 and is signposted. It consists of a fenced area with a large memorial stone and five smaller ones, symbolic of each deceased. In the region, August 10, the anniversary of the death of the five firefighters, is traditionally a day of remembrance, on which the fire brigades of the Meinersen municipality come together at the memorial site.
The commemorative medal on the occasion of the forest fire disaster in August 1975 and a certificate were awarded to everyone who had provided active assistance in fighting the fire, as well as to those who lost their lives as a result of their work. This also applies to the police officer who had a fatal accident while pursuing a suspected arsonist, and to the district fire chief who suffered a fatal heart attack on the way home from the scene of the fire. The care for the bereaved remains unclear.
Fire equipment
The fire brigades were better equipped as a result of the forest fire disaster:
- They received forest fire maps based on the standard of the Bundeswehr and the forest administration.
- Emergency vehicles with all-wheel drive were purchased.
- Before this disaster, fire brigades only had a few-channel radio equipment (SEM 37/47/57), which led to communication problems during use. The emergency services who came to help extinguish the fire had only equipped their respective home channel - but not the radio channel on site. As a result, several fire engines burned because they could not call for reinforcements. After this mission, the use of multi-channel radio equipment ( FuG -7/8) became a requirement.
- The better equipment also included the purchase of the tank tender 8/18 with an enlarged water tank (1,800 l), the so-called Lower Saxony tanker .
- In addition, command vehicles were purchased and the so-called telecommunications trains were set up.
- Furthermore, the disaster control was improved, which had a positive effect in 1998 with the ICE accident in Eschede .
Construction work
As a result of the fire disaster, fire protection in the Lüneburg Heath, but also throughout Germany, has been significantly improved. In order to be better prepared for future forest fires, paved access roads for fire engines were created.
Extinguishing water extraction points were set up at existing lakes, fish ponds or gravel pits. Extinguishing water ponds were created in particularly endangered areas in order to enable fire trucks to absorb water quickly and efficiently. Where there was no running water for water extraction, disused heating oil tanks with contents between 20,000 and 100,000 liters were placed in the ground as extinguishing water storage tanks.
Reforestation
When reforesting the forest areas destroyed by the storm and the forest fire, a departure from the pine monocultures was initially considered. More deciduous trees ( oak and beech ) should be planted. Soil investigations showed, however, that deciduous forest was only possible in very few locations because of the barren sandy soil. The forest fire also destroyed much of the existing humus soil. At the edges of the forest, larches were sometimes planted to serve as fire protection. Otherwise, the burned areas were reforested with pine trees . In Trebel that emerged after 1975 to not reforested areas to around 550 hectares Nemitz heath .
Marginal phenomena
A clearing created by the fire near Gorleben was occupied in 1980 by members of the anti-nuclear movement who tried to proclaim an illegal Republic of Free Wendland there .
literature
- Rudolf Augstein (Ed.): The great fire. Who failed? ( Der Spiegel . 29th vol., No. 34, 1975 ).
- Jürgen Delfs: The fire brigade memorial stone in the Pale Heide . In: Well-known and hidden natural monuments in the Gifhorn-Wolfsburg area . Voigt, Gifhorn 1991 ( series of publications on local history from Sparkasse Gifhorn-Wolfsburg 7, ZDB -ID 30106-1 ).
- The great forest fire disaster . 1976. By Klaus Luttermann with photographs by Juergen Muegge-Luttermann, Eschede ISBN 978-3-9800353-6-1 .
- Peter Lex: Forest fires in August 1975 in Lower Saxony . ( Online , pdf, 6.7 MB)
Web links
- Summary article on the forest fire disaster in the Lüneburg Heath on feuerwehrpresse.de (pdf; 44 kB)
- 40 years ago: Fire disaster in the heath at NDR on June 5, 2015
- 45 years ago: Fire disaster in the Heide at NDR on August 8, 2020
- Report from an eyewitness (firefighter)
- Eyewitness report (soldiers)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b August 11, 1975: Biggest forest fire in the Lüneburg Heath , NDR.de
- ↑ Der Spiegel 34/1975 of August 18, 1975: "We put out our fire ourselves"
- ^ Memories of the forest fire catastrophe of 1975 in Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung of August 12, 2018
- ^ Commemorative medals on the occasion of the forest fire disaster in August 1975