"At first we want to establish, what people can get poisoned with in chemical accidents. Later there will be a time for creating the prevention system," says Prof. Sławomir Czerczak, coordinator of an innovative research project. (own info).
Barrel Paralyzed the Town
The main tasks the participants to the rescue maneuvers "Heated barrel - Tuchola 2007" had to face included evacuation of 1,600 students and inhabitants, and extinguishing a blazing tanker. By Krzysztof Łangowski
Deep Water
Held in October, the exercises "Water 2007" checked the possibility of cooperation between different services as well as different rescue techniques used on water areas. Report by Paweł Frątczak and Piotr Cholajda.
Towards mass disinfection
In the times of the modern challenges the issue of mass decontamination appears regularly, during scientific conferences, trainings, briefings, sometimes in specialist journals, including our columns. It is difficult to solve this problem, not only in Poland, since this is very often beyond the means of even best organized rescue service. Disinfection is a type of decontamination, with some organizational and technical solutions the same. Włodzimierz Wątor describes the disinfection and its division.
Verdict: Fireball?
How to hold a rescue action, when there is a threat of a BLEVE explosion? This issue has been described several times in the Fire Review. This time the firefighters from the Silesia province together with other services had to face this problem during exercises organized in a building with a high risk of a serious industrial failure. Agnieszka Rękas writes how to carry out a BLEVE action.
Talks on Safety
International scientific conference in Legnica gathered the representatives of science, rescue subjects, and state and local government administration. They discussed changes in the organization and functioning of the integrated system of medical rescue and crisis management. Report from the conference by Adam Konieczny and Leszek Gławęda.
Assessment of the consequences of toxic substances being liberated
Supporting Intuition
The instruments of the modern safety engineering allow us to manage the safety of the local societies. This is not an easy task, since a dynamic industrial development induces new threats connected with dangerous substances. Although it is not very probable that the threats will appear, their consequences can be severe. Rafał Porowski and Iwona Kocia described the assessment of the consequences of toxic substances being liberated.
Be Prepared for Terrorism
The question is not whether but what kind of a terrorist attack threatens us; and we should get prepared for it, said experts during a conference on counteracting the main danger to the modern world. Report from the conference by Anna Łańduch.
Palace Ups and Downs
For several years of their activity, conservation of monuments working groups have carried out about 480 inspections in the Lower Silesia province, 90 of them at the province level. Creation of the groups was an attempt to rescue the decaying buildings. Was the attempt successful? Lech Lewandowski tries to answer this question.
Rescuers of the National Rescue and Firefighting System and the Bird Flu
The State Fire Service is obliged to support counteracting highly virulent bird flu and fighting the centers of its outbreak. What will be the tasks of the firefighters in practice? And, first of all, what in fact is the disease? Krzysztof Łangowski describes the struggle of firefighters fighting with this problem.
Green on Red
Military Off-road Vehicles in Fire Service
During the 15th International Defence Industry Exhibition MSPO in Kielce, held in September 2007, two interesting off-road vehicles were presented: Star 1444 from the TGM family, and Jelcz 442 Bartek, which can replace Star 944 and 1466 and Jelcz 662. The vehicles were constructed for the Polish army, but, adapted, can be used by the fire service as well. Zbigniew Szablewski presents the technical novelties.
New Legal Acts
We present some most important legal acts published in Dziennik Ustaw (the Journal of Law) no. 150 - 189 of 2007 and in Monitor Polski no. 51 - 73 of 2007.
1. The decree of the minister of interior and administration of 7 August 2007 amending the decree on the number of employees in the organizational units of the State Fire Service, on the highest ranks assigned to the individual posts and additional qualification requirements the firefighters with specified employment status should comply with. (Dz. U. no 153, item. 1085). Edited by Grażyna Leoncewicz.
Amendments to the Act on State Fire Service
Anti-corruptive and Motivating
The authors of the Act of 7 September 2007 amending the Act on the SFS, which has already been in force, intended to eliminate any possibilities of corruption in the SFS and, by introducing the regulations on the salary system, to enable paying the means reserved in 2007 for awards and benefits. By Bartosz Pawnik.
Air Arsonists (3)
Abraham: ... Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? ... So the LORD said, "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes."
New King James Version, Gen.18:25-26
The attitude of most Germans unconditionally and often enthusiastically accepting their beloved leader's ideas on the new organization of the world may suggest that this otherwise cultural and reasonable nation forgot that who sows the wind, reaps the whirlwind. Paweł Rochala describes one of such whirlwinds, a fiery one, in the next article in the series.
Safer Years
April 2007 marked an anniversary of the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997 coming into force. The preparation to the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the review conference in April 2008 and the EU activities responding to those events make it worthwhile to remember what the convention is and what duties and advantages it brings, both for the international community and for Poland. By Marcin Napiórkowski.
Trip for Impressions
"The mountains are inhabited by hundreds of nations, which have always been at war with each other. This is a lane of the world, tightly closed, cut-off by two seas ..., barricaded with sky-high mountain ranges. Who will get here? Who will dare to come inside?" wrote Ryszard Kapuściński in one of his reportages. Aspirant Jędrzej Banasik from the City HQ of the SFS in Wrocław dared. These are his memories from the journey. By Jerzy Banasik
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