Around fifty members of the NGO International Emergency Firefighters and partners from different European countries gathered on Saturday in Saint-Cernin-de-Larche, in Corrèze, as part of the European research program Silvanus for the prevention and fight against forest fires. Several technologies were tested during a fire drill.
New technologies to fight fires
Seven false hikers raised the alarm. Among them Sylvie Lorenzo, mayor of Saint-Cernin-de-Larche: “our role is to walk around, see smoke and notify emergency services“. Alert then “send messages on networks [sociaux]“. Thanks to technology, messages posted on social networks are collected at the PUI command center and make it possible to quickly direct a water bomber helicopter to the fire to limit the spread of the fire.
During the exercise, the PUI used a helicopter from the company HBE R+O. The helicopter pilot made several return trips between Lake Causse and the exercise site to dump water. On the ground, fire teams from the PUI and SDIS of Corrèze were present. Firefighters who were able to rely on technological innovations in fire fighting. With the Silvanus program, partners from several European countries came to test their inventions.
The Silvanus program ends in a few months
Razvan Purcarea is an engineer. He came from Romania to present a virtual reality headset : “It can provide firefighters and especially commanders with real-time information and allow them to manage the operation with plenty of information available“. Didier Badin, member of the PUI, tried and was won over: “we can find accesses and have the machines routed through the accesses that we see by our drone“.
“We tested all the technologies“, welcomes Philippe Besson, president of the NGO Firefighters of International Emergency, at the end of the exercise. These new technologies will be used in the future to firefighters and municipal services. This test will have made it possible to improve them before the end of the Silvanus program at the beginning of next year.
