After Bordeaux, a warning about major forest fires in Switzerland

Nicolas Schumacher, commander of the Swiss firefighters, has returned from a mission in south-western France. For one week he led a team of 34 people from the cantons of Geneva, Vaud and Neuchâtel, deployed against the fires in the Bordeaux region.

The sector assigned to the Swiss included homes, industrial buildings and solar installations to be protected. In one village the flames destroyed 183 houses. The team worked 24-hour shifts, keeping ten to fifteen people on the ground at a time. Around 300 firefighters in total were operating in the same sector, alongside other international units.

Schumacher described a firestorm, with intense heat, smoke and the distinctive sound of the blaze. Swiss units rarely encounter such conditions.

What Switzerland lacks

The commander notes that Swiss forests are smaller than those in the Gironde. Even so, he considers a major fire in the country only a matter of time.

To deal with it he sets out several priorities. Adequate training and equipment are needed across the whole country. National coordination is needed involving the police, the army and civil protection. He also regards air support, with helicopters and firefighting aircraft, as indispensable.

Prevention remains in his view the main defence, ahead of any intervention against the flames.

The Swiss firefighters also brought operational knowledge back from the mission. French specialists passed on tactical doctrines and practical experience that appear in no manual. This material has been documented and will serve future training.

The experience is directly relevant to Italian-speaking Switzerland, where forest fires recur in dry seasons. Ticino already has warning systems and specialist teams, but the scale of the events described in France is of a different order.