„Forest2021” - emergency and crisis management services exercise organized by State Fire Services

For 3 days 470 firemen and 150 vehicles, together with representatives of other safety and crisis management institutions – police, medical services, armed forces, State Forests, Polish Air Navigation Services, local critical infrastructure operators and Crisis Information Centre played a series of episodes related to large-scale forest fire. The exercise scenario assumed a long-term forest fire, covering large area and difficult to extinguish due to unfavourable environmental conditions. The quickly-spreading fire was a threat not only to critical infrastructure (electric power station and grids), but to several groups of tourists and forest workers, resulting in the need for search and rescue activities and providing on-site medical assistance in addition to „ordinary” fire-fighting.

One of the issues specifically addressed during the exercises was operational use of unmanned and manned aviation to monitor the crisis situation, assist in search of missing people, combat the fire and deliver initial risk and damage assessment. The challenge was how to ensure maximum possible benefits from drones and planes for the crisis management activities (especially making available updated, full geoinformation services to the command centre), while guaranteeing safe and smooth coordination of flight operations of manned and unmanned aircrafts. 

Specialists from the Crisis Information Center of CBK PAN made sure that those in charge of the operations had the best picture of the situation at all times by providing up-to-date maps and terrain models based on processed photos and video films provided on an ongoing basis by unmanned aerial systems at the disposal of various services and entities participating in the exercises. The Polish Air Navigation Services Agency was responsible for the safety and coordination of UAV and manned aircraft flights.

Thanks to the "LAS 2021" exercises, it was possible to effectively verify the level of preparation of the forces and resources of the central operating circuit and the national firefighting and rescue system to operate during a natural disaster (large-scale fire), as well as to test the mechanisms of cooperation and coordination with other entities and services involved in  the crisis management activities.

Film from the exercise: https://youtu.be/NMlMncoLwDY

More details and photos: https://www.gov.pl/web/kgpsp/cwiczenia-centralnego-odwodu-operacyjnego-las-2021