The fire brigade has gone on Fehmarn training

Two cars collide on the highway. There are injured people in the cars and the entire highway is blocked. A few hundred meters behind, a single motorist is inattentive for a short moment because a text just arrived. And then the car with the inattentive driver drives up at high speed behind the rear car in the traffic jam and bursts into flames. This sort of thing is serious, of course, but a perfectly normal day at the office for any fire department.

Then what do you do?
But if the above happens in the middle of an 18 kilometer long tunnel 30 meters below sea level, then it is even more serious. Smoke and heat generation from the fire, together with the many cars blocking the carriageway, make it difficult for the rescue vehicles to get there. At the same time, the risk for other road users in the tunnel increases with every second that passes. And they can’t get out. Fire and smoke suck oxygen out of the tunnel, and the fire threatens to spread. And what do you do then?

On a study trip in Switzerland
That scenario – among many others – the firefighters in Lolland-Falster’s Fire Service have to prepare for. Deputy Director Morten Enevoldsen Lykkeberg is responsible for emergency preparedness from the Danish side of the Fehmarn Tunnel. Together with a large delegation from Lolland-Falster’s fire brigade, the fire brigade from Femern and Femern A/S, he was recently on a study trip to the IFA (International Fire Academy) in Switzerland to absorb knowledge: – On a European level, IFA is one of the main players in terms of knowledge about tunnels, tunnel fires and tunnel rescue. We have to find out what is the extra thing we need to be able to do and what we need to do differently compared to what we normally do, says Morten Enevoldsen Lykkeberg.

11 people killed in St. The Gotthard Tunnel
The Swiss experience is partly expensive. In 2001, the accident that should not have happened happened in Skt. The Gotthard Tunnel. Two trucks collided one kilometer from the tunnel portal, and both fuel and thousands of car tires that were the load of one truck ignited. The temperature in the tunnel reached over 1,100 degrees. 11 people lost their lives and the tunnel was closed for two months after the accident.

Drives in from both sides at the same time
One of the things that can be learned from the Swiss experience is that the rescue work must be launched from both sides of the tunnel at the same time:

– We drive from both sides – regardless of what has happened. That is why we will have close cooperation with the Germans. And we have to have all that planned. Both the extra training our people must have, and also what equipment we must have ready to drive down there, says Morten Enevoldsen Lykkeberg.

Comes with cars
If a fire were to break out in the tunnel, the plan is for the rescue vehicles to drive in via the tunnel tubes for cars. The rescue team can then access the pipe where there is a fire via the safety doors. There is therefore no need to invest in special rail vehicles such as in the Great Belt Tunnel.

Femern A/S pays
Even so, the Lolland-Falster Fire Service will probably need extra equipment – and perhaps also extra personnel when the coverage area is expanded with four tunnel tubes of 18 kilometers each. However, it will not drain the municipal coffers of Guldborgsund and Lolland municipalities. It is part of the Construction Act on the Fehmarn Connection that extra expenses for, for example, emergency services are borne by the client – Femern A/S.