Two topics dominated the feedback from the firefighters from Belgium who completed the one-and-a-half-day intensive underground car park course at our training car park: tactical ventilation and hose management. Many things were new and good for the participants, which they are now evaluating for further training at home.
Let the air work for you
«We learned a lot, especially about ventilation: How important it is and how to ventilate effectively.» Several comrades echoed this statement by Joel Ervens. Sidney Legrand commented: «One tends to be too impatient with ventilation and wants to push as hard as possible. Here we had the opportunity to see that letting the air currents work a little more and disturb them a lot less, it opens up just as many possibilities.»

Among other things, the course participants had the opportunity to create a ventilation concept for a scenario in the training car park and to test it 1:1. In the drills, they implemented different options for tactical ventilation. What was new for many was the approach of ventilating via the stairwell of the underground car park and pushing the smoke out into the open via the carriageways.