Forest fires, volunteers, barracks: the new Jura fire chief addresses hot issues

THE Colonel Philippe Olivier arrived at the direction of Sdis of Jura in February 2024. Forest fires, recruitment firefighters and life barracks… Voice of Jura returns with him to his main priorities. Encounter.

Voix du Jura: What are your priorities today, as the new director of Sdis du Jura?

Colonel Philippe Olivier: The challenges in the Jura focus on preparing for and fighting forest fires. We must continue to support the development of equipment and personnel, and then have a technician’s perspective with local elected officials and the prefecture’s services.

My operational priority is to discover the territory. I carry myself quite easily on interventions. No later than the night from Sunday to Monday [les 2 et 3 juin, NDLR], I was alongside our firefighters in a serious traffic accident. Knowing the territory with its risks also means meeting with industrialists. Above all, it means knowing the men and women who make up the 1,500 firefighters of the establishment and trying to understand what motivates them today and what is an obstacle to their commitment.

VDJ: What, in your opinion, makes it special to command the Sdis du Jura?

PO: There is the geography of the territory. This is already an important element. We have different risks from the departments in which I have worked. Particularly in the winter season with winter sports activity. There are travel times: here, we are not talking in kilometers, but in travel time. Fifteen kilometers in the mountains is not the same time as 15 km in the plain.

Forest fires

VDJ: The Jura remains marked, not to say traumatized, by forest fires… Maisod 2018, Cernon in 2022… Even recently, at the beginning of April, 16 hectares went up in smoke in Chassal-Molinges… What is the level of risk for this summer of 2024 after a rainy spring?

PO: Generally speaking, apart from a few departments in France, rainfall helps make forests green. Except that we should not rule out the fact that unfortunately the Jura forest is sick, whether because of the box tree moth or the bark beetle. We have conifers which represent risk areas. You rightly mention the month of April. No one expected that we would have a sixteen hectare fire. We will still be conditioned to the weather. If we have hot winds that dry out very quickly, we can very quickly find ourselves in a risky situation. Today, we don’t know how to anticipate it.

VDJ: The department’s firefighters are continuing forest fire training to be ready to intervene in the Jura and to be sent outside the department if necessary… The Sdis is equipping itself with new equipment to fight against forest fires. forest… Does Jura now have sufficient means to combat them?

PO: It’s complicated to say if the means are sufficient. The year 2022 showed on a national level that each department, even the most seasoned, experienced a shortage of capacity. We realize that no department in France is able to manage this type of disaster alone. But we have a national organization that can respond to them. In the Jura, we will always have machines ready to be projected until the end of September.

How do we prepare for it? There was an acquisition of equipment for fighting forest fires which was carried out both under the aegis of the Department and both under the aegis of the State. The State with a national plan has also implemented a support plan alongside this.

Lack of volunteers

We had to train men and women to face this new risk and also train them in the new equipment we have been equipped with. This requires a significant effort for volunteer firefighters. It is to be welcomed that they find the resources, that is to say the necessary time, to train themselves in the operation of machines which have mechanical specificities.

VDJ: A national problem which has its local variation, the firefighters lack volunteers… What are the needs to date? Where are the greatest needs?

PO: So the need is everywhere. This is especially a problem during the daytime, because people are busy with their work. They are active and their availability during this period is low. There are employers who play the game by releasing their firefighter employees. We need more and more socially responsible companies. If we had 150 more firefighters in the department, that would give us flexibility.

The second priority is to retain people. So it’s also societal. We are in a society of everything, right away. People who want to be firefighters think they will go into action right away. But there is a training time. We may need to improve through the development of the technical platform in Champagnole to train volunteer firefighters when they are most available. There must still be a lot of activity, a significant experience, before being very efficient.

VDJ: In recent years, many Jura barracks have been renewed. A new one is being prepared in Arbois, for example. Will there be future barracks in the coming years that will be renewed, rehabilitated, modernized?

PO: We will have announcements for the year 2025 of an equipment plan, a multi-year plan for investment, equipment and construction.

Administrative investigations

VDJ: An external audit revealed dysfunctions within the Dole-Choisey barracks, including issues of harassment. An internal investigation was opened and the previous president of the Department, Clément Pernot, announced the launch of a new investigation. What did these various investigations reveal about the malfunctions reported by volunteer firefighters?

PO: There is a criminal aspect which is underway and which is progressing in step with the urgent needs of justice. The establishment has taken precautionary measures against everyone, that is to say the complainants and possible perpetrators, so that no one is harmed. The administrative investigation is still ongoing.

This administrative investigation aims to understand what is happening in the rescue centers and to understand the level of involvement of the complainants and possible perpetrators. The why and how aims above all to define areas for improvement, so that these facts, which disrupted the institution, do not happen again.

VDJ: What decisions were taken following these investigations?

PO: They have not been released as we speak, it is something that is still in progress. There are several administrative investigations underway, including one which has just led at the end of May to the automatic removal by the disciplinary council of a volunteer firefighter.

We are rather dealing with generational problems of people who live together 24 hours a day, who range from 16 to 65 years old, who are both professionals and volunteers. It is in fact the homogeneity of the group which is not assured and which points out certain actions of certain people.

VDJ: How do you plan to act to restore a healthier working environment?

PO: The objective is to restore calm by having an administrative investigation which perhaps takes time, I am willing to agree, but what is important is that it is carried out very well, that it is not botched and that it will serve as a basis for rebuilding, rebuilding, redefining a serene climate. The objective is to start with a perhaps blank slate which will result from the fruit of the administrative investigation.

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