Rosenbauer builds aircraft rescue and fire fighting vehicles, industrial emergency extinguishing vehicles, special extinguishing vehicles, large tank emergency extinguishing vehicles, small firefighting vehicles and many other vehicle types. All of them feature powerful technology at their core – efficient firefighting equipment from Rosenbauer! Only a small number of employees are allowed to use this firefighting equipment on the job, either for the further development of the equipment or for video shoots.
It appeared to be just a regular Wednesday, except for the rear-end collision that occurred. The occupants were able to free themselves, but suddenly the rear vehicle caught on fire. Within a few minutes the vehicle was fully ablaze. Shortly after arrival at the scene of the emergency, the crew of the tank firefighting vehicle is equipped with respiratory protection and ready to combat the fire. Uncertainties must always be expected when fighting fires – the driver’s airbag explodes and ejects through the sunroof at high velocity, and shortly afterwards the propelling charge of the side airbag ignites. The vehicle is fully engulfed, the entire interior is burning, as are the external plastic components, such as the mirrors and trims. Black smoke from the front left tire indicates that it is already burning.
The fire control procedure begins in a routine fashion. The flames are suppressed within seconds, but a large white smoke cloud indicates that the high heat is causing the water to evaporate. And again a dangerous situation arises: The magnesium baseplate of the steering wheel begins to burn, accompanied by a brightly glowing light. Even the slightest of contact with extinguishing water leads to small explosions.
After a short time, the fire is extinguished with the high-pressure fast attack hose, and everybody’s pleased – the scenes are in the can. These will become part of a new video about Rosenbauer’s extinguishing technology. And, as is often the case, I get to be right in the middle of the action. However, the work for this began long before, because not only does this require a great deal of know-how about the fire-fighting technology itself, but also in the difficult task of depicting the firefighting technology in a realistic way. After all, our main premise is to show the extinguishing technology in realistic operational scenarios in our videos. And a realistic fire progression with a realistic pre-combustion period is critical for this. After all, what fire brigade (whether professional or voluntary) arrives at the scene of an emergency just a minute or two after the alarm has been raised? Unfortunately, most YouTube videos that depict fire fighting start in this way.
Before a video showing Rosenbauer extinguishing technology is released, the extinguishing system must of course prove its efficiency during the development phase. And for this too, various types of fires are created. But that’s what we’ll find out about in the second part!
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