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Welcome to a new episode of Gerrit's Diary
Today's topic is all about the fire department.
It is in service for more than 11 years,
many of you have seen it already,
but we've never reported about it in detail, really.
When, the residential house in Knuffingen burns,
I often hear people who are watching say:
'Gee! More than 30 fire engines? That's totally unrealistic!'
As you'll see, it's not! Today, I want to explain a little bit about
our considerations regarding the fire runs,
and how closely we stay true to reality.
We are starting a new series, in which we want to present
all of our 11 larger fire runs in Wunderland.
We'll cut videos with beautiful camera perspectives,
and tell the story behind each one.
I'm starting with the fire at the residential house.
'Fire and rescue service Knuffingen,
where exactly is the site of the accident?'
'Mr. Schmidt speaking, at the Schlosstreet. An apartment is burning
at the corner Brauereigasse on the 2nd floor!'
'Are there still people in the apartment?'
'No, no, they're not!'
' Are you on site and able to instruct the fire brigade?'
'Yes, I'll stay put! But, when will you get here, already?'
'We're on our way, and arriving shortly!'
Here, I'm sitting where the software programs
and the fire runs are being developed.
Already in the year 2000 I began writing the vehicle control programs,
which regulate ships, airplanes, and the cars, of course.
The cars call for a very extensive system,
which has grown and become more and more perfect over the years,
with traffic lights, 'right over left', and all of the
right-of-way, and pathing rules.
From the very start, I've tried to depict everything as realistic as possible.
We modelled it after the Hamburg fire department.
I watched them long and often,
and tried to integrate every little detail:
Like when the fire brigade is being alarmed,
everyone hurries to his vehicle. Whoever's ready, turns on
lights and emergency lights, pulls the truck onto the courtyard,
and then it still takes a little moment.
For 10 - 15 seconds they're still not departing,
and the background is quite simple:
In Hamburg a brigade is a command vehicle, which is a small vehicle,
and then 3 large fire trucks: 2 fire engines, and the turntable ladder.
They are always departing in a certain order
for tactical reasons, but the small command vehicle
is always leading the brigade up front.
It is staffed with the station officer, who has the task of
fetching the mission dispatch from the office.
That takes a little moment, and that's why
the large fire engines are waiting for a short while.
Often, we have staff from the Hamburg fire department here,
and often I witnessed that a few of the colleagues
were standing here, observing and enjoying the action,
and then saying:
'Look at this, Bernie, just as in real life with us!
We're also always waiting for you!'
It makes me happy! Then, I know, o.k.:
First of all: it matches, and second: it was discovered!
And thus, I tried to depict the entire fire run process,
- within our technical and structural possibilities -
as perfect as possible.
For example, I always want to make sure that the turntable ladders
or the vehicles with the ladders, are standing in front of the building.
Same as in real life, because, whenever a roof is burning,
it's no use to park the vehicles carrying water right next to the house,
but the ladders for extinguishing the fire from above,
are standing far away, possibly completely blocked in.
Another background, which also happens in Hamburg often,
is the case of a fire on confined premises. Then, the normal
order of the brigade, fire engine, ladder, fire engine, will be cancelled,
and via radio a third brigade will be instructed to drive
to the incident site with the turntable ladder running up front,
so it can park right in front of the building.
Over the years, we also implemented scenes like
a fire engine stopping for a moment, the ladder vehicle passing it
by running over a bus stop in this case,
so it will arrive at the fire site first.
Although 20 cars are there, already, the ladder is in front of the building.
Sounds simple, it's fun to find a solution for it,
but sometimes I tear my hair out
until I find a solution.
I now started the fire run, manually, as it were.
We do this every 15 min on average, for different reasons:
We want the fire action to run perfectly.
When there's a monster traffic jam in Knuffingen,
it makes no sense to chase the fire brigade in as well.
We've certain criteria, but round-about every quarter of an hour
we start a fire brigade mission.
Here, the first fire brigade has been alarmed.
This is the scene I described earlier: The large trucks
are already waiting on the courtyard with emergency lights flashing.
Now, the command vehicle takes off.
At the same time, there's a smoke generator
activated underneath the layout producing smoke.
From a central site we'll channel the smoke with
subsurface tubes and fans to the different incident scenes.
The vehicles are now running through this narrow alley to the
site of the burning house. They realize, that this is a bigger issue,
and that the fire could spread further.
So, they give a second alarm, meaning, the neighboring fire brigade
is being alerted
That one's up here, emergency lights on, the pathway is blocked,
so they can hurry over the highway to the fire site smoothly,
with lights flashing and sirens wailing.
When a residential house is burning severely, no matter
whether lives are at stake or not, it makes sense
to have a rescue vehicle on standby.
In the course of a fire run I'll alert 4 - 5 of them,
and they'll be on standby somewhere offside.
Meanwhile, the fire has spread to the roof.
Therefore, we have a 4th alarm, which means
from this side of the layout underneath the staging yard
everything we've got is being alerted:
Two more fire brigades, and those are being sent to the
site of incidence as special vehicles.
The technical emergeny service is in position offside,
in order to support the fire fighters.
The special vehicles are approaching via the highway
from all sides, and find their position at the fire site.
When the fire brigade arrives, sirens wailing, it goes
naturally, no other vehicle will run over the green traffic light.
The fire brigade always has the right-of-way.
But, what can happen is, right here at the junction
where the fire brigade wants to cross, the light is red,
causing a tailback at this traffic light.
If there's a vehicle at a traffic light where the fire brigade
honks behind the vehicle, and it doesn't move
within 10 seconds, I'm running over the red light.
By now, I only get feedback once a month like:
'Gee! The ladder vehicle ran here, but the cops came from there...'
By the way, when the Coke-Truck runs here, and can only turn there,
because his 140 LEDs would get scratched at the tunnel otherwise,
but the fire brigade wants it to move straight ahead,
because the street there has been blocked, I'm left out in the cold...
and have to find a solution for the burning-of-residential-home-action,
which takes more than 12.000 lines in programming language,
with IF-THEN gate strings where to send a vehicle,
so it will never happen again that the Coke-Truck will stop
right at that moment at this spot.
So far, I've always made it, but sometimes it is
a challenge, and not always fun.
At some point I've stopped to follow the Hamburg model
in one little detail:
It is the largest fire brigade run, and the
'We-show-everything-we've-got-and-can-do-run',
so, sometimes there are 1 - 2 vehicles which
would not be dispatched in a real fire incident,
so I make something up to explain this,
in case someone asks me about it.
Most important: I can put all of or vehicles onto this street.
For example, our 5th brigade, which is being built right now,
because, for 11 years we've oriented ourselves always
at the newest state-of-the-art fire brigade purchased in Hamburg -
then we also built it for Knuffingen.
We are busy with the new fire brigade. One fire engine
is finished. Axel is momentarily building the second one.
Then, we'll add the turntable ladder vehicle.
6 vehicles are under construction, 2 are ready, respectively,
and I'll present them sometime, soon.
Here, the fire was extinguished, the vehicles are departing,
and as promised, in the upcoming months we'll try to
show you all of our larger Knuffingen, American
and Airport fire brigade scenarios,
nicely staged in little clips.
We have a new pride and joy at the Hamburg Airport:
A new cargo plane by FedEx,
and I'll show some nice impressions in the end.
Thanks for watching, I'm looking forward to the next episode,
which will probably be about the HafenCity
and the Elbe Philharmonic Hall.
Bye-bye!