INTERNATIONAL MEETING

2017

124ème

congrès national des sapeurs-pompiers de France

11 – 14 octobre 2017 – Ajaccio

October 13rd

, Friday

WILDFIRE STRATEGY

Christophe Frerson SDIS2B-EMIZDS Sud

christophe.frerson@interieur.gouv.fr

CORSICA

Southern France

Forest fire location in France

50% of French crisis occur in southern France.

It manages all kind of risks.

3 regions, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, (French Riviera)

Occitanie and Corsica,

21 departments (+2 during fire season).

It serves 10 Million inhabitants and several millions of tourists

over a territory of 112,804 km². 900 Kms wide

Southern Zonal Prefecture – Safety & Security

WILDFIRES MANAGEMENT IN

SOUTHERN FRANCE

CEZOC BUILDING

CeZOC

Centre Zonal Opérationnel de Crise

COZ CRISIS ROOM

ZONAL OPERATION CENTER

COZ LOCATION

3 main missions: Anticipation – Provider – Coordination

• Coordination of national fleet of firefighter aircraft;

• Manage all search and rescue helicopters;

• Could dispatch resources with 40,000 firefighters:

professionals, volunteers, soldiers and civil protection military

force of 1,000 staff to reinforce fire departments.

• 24,000 policemen – 16,000 gendarmes (military policemen)

• 15 permanent staff 24/7 during fire season

COZ

Southern regional interagency

coordinator center named “COZ Sud”

• Fire season – June to end of September

• High urbanization and density of population

• Large areas of wildland urban interface

« WUI »

• Extreme fires that require deployment of

many resources

WILDFIRES CONTEXT IN

FRANCE

WILDFIRES CONTEXT IN

FRANCE

Extreme weather conditions in July-August:

• Temperatures near 40°C

• Very strong winds, gusty, sometimes more than > 100

km/h

• Humidity between 10 or 20% in extreme conditions

• High level of urbanization - WUI – large population

and strong economic activity

• Large influx of tourists in summer

Conditions which result:

Very powerful fires that can spread > 2000 m/heven 5000 to 7000 m/h observed

Fire/population interfaces difficult to manage, containment is priority. Only evacuation for the vulnerable structures such as camping or mobile home.

Damage or disruptions on economic activities (blackouts, closure of highways, railroads)

WILDFIRES CONTEXT IN

FRANCE

Extreme fires require implementing many

resources:

Thousands of men, hundreds of vehicles

More than dozen aircraft simultaneously, different

types (helicopter, scooper, air tanker)

WILDFIRES CONTEXT IN

FRANCE

French forest fire strategy

2 main principles:•Global approach for fire prevention and suppression•Anticipation: location, time, resources, think before, organize priority , fire behavior, ongoing operations

4 main objectives:•Preventing all fire start : patrol, watchtower, DFCI•Controlling spread in early stages : DFCI, defend lines, access tracks•avoiding catastrophic developments : Massive attack aerial & ground•Rehabilitating areas destroyed by fire : less vulnerable in the future – loops to DFCI

French forest fire strategy since 1994

Fire Management, suppression, fuel removing, prescribed fire with Partners:

• National resources (Ministry of the interior)

• DDAF (Ministry of Agriculture)

• ONF (Ministry of Agriculture)

• Forestry services (County)

• Local Patrols (Mayor)

• Scouts

French forest fire strategy since 1994French forest fire strategy

• National forest fire school

• National training program (3 to 5)

• Departmental School (1to2,3)

• Departmental exercises

• Regional exercises

• And european exercises

Virtual reality platform:• Realisitic, complex inputs

• Cheaper than real full scale exercises

• Learn by trial and errors

National Training Program

Virtual reality platform

Movie of valabrecenter

National Training proram

FOREST FIRE RESOURCES

Rotary wings : 10 + 20 helicopters

8 EC145 : Command and drops monitoring

2 PUMA + light helicopter : Helitack operations

20 counties helitacks, resources contracted with FRS

3 Beechcraft

Air Attack &

coordination

9 Tracker S2F

Retardant12 Canadair CL415

Water / Retardant2 DASH8 QS400

Water / Retardant

Fixed wings : 26 aircraft

and 16 aerial retardant bases (19 total)

Forest fire National aerial resources

PREDICTIVE SERVICE

INTERAGENCY MEETING 2 TIMES / DAY

9:30 & 17:00

Low Light Moderate High Very high Extreme

Average distribution during

fire season since 1992

Air patrols when severe weather conditions :

ORANGE - High = air patrol with conditions

RED - Very high = air patrol over location defined with

« Meteo France analisys » + ground patrols

BLACK - Extreme = several races of air patrols + lot of ground

patrols

AERIAL FIREFIGHTING STRATEGY

Very High 69 Corse 36

Extreme 11 Corse 3

Number of days 2017

RACES OF AIR PATROLS

RACES OF AIR PATROLS :

135 IN SUMMER 2017

Before - During

INTERDEPARTMENTAL REINFORCEMENT

FIRE SUPPRESSION RESPONSE

1. Fast initial attack

2. Massive attack

3. Priority to fire ignition

• Combine Aerial & Ground Patrols = Resources assigned based on risk analysis

• Short time = Reducing response time by increasing units on the ground and

patrols

• Safety = Increasing collective and personal safety

Based on 3 main actions:

• Air PatrolsAdapted and proportioned response : resources activated and deployed accordingly to the fire danger (D-1) : – Aerial retardant bases (call to open)– Counties resources Ground forces and helitacks Type 2

• Fast detection– Prepositioned resources, watch towers, remote sensors

(cameras, …), aerial monitoring system operational GIS

• Massive Attacks = Strong resources in the first 5 minutes– Aerial patrol : 2 Trackers (S2F) with retardants available

“G.A.AR. = Guet Aerien ARmé” and Ground forces

FIREFIGHTING STRATEGY

1) Very fast initial attack

Aerial fire strategy

FIRST = AERIAL PATROL

FOREST FIRE PRIMARY UNITS

Forest Fire Truck

GIFF (Strike Team)

GIL (Heavy Strike Team)

Water spray – self

protection

Mini 3500 Liters

or

• Heavy resources deployed in the first minutes4 to 6 Canadairs – “train of aerial resources” + 1 DASH

Sometimes wave = all resources available

AERIAL FIREFIGHTING

STRATEGY

2) Massive attack

Aerial fire strategy

FOREST FIRE ADDITIONAL UNITS GIR (Retardant)

Water tank team (20 000 L of Water)

DIH (hot shot crew with water) linked with chopper

Fire Structure Strike Team

Area burnt from 1992 to 2016 Almost

17,000 ha

in 2017

RESULTS

RESULTS

FIRES > 10 HA AND AIRCRAFT INVOLVED

70% OF ORIGINS ARE KNOWN

2017: Almost 10,000 drops

and 8,000 flight hours

2017 SPECIFICITIES

AERIAL MONITORING SYSTEM

X 2

OPERATIONAL IMPLEMENTATION

Improve situation awareness :

– Real time video

– High quality pictures, movie and zoom

– Infrared sensor

– Tracking

– Measurement of distances and perimeters

Aerial monitoring system features

EUROPEAN AERIAL MODULE

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION