The identity of the man who was killed in the fire on Wednesday is not yet known, according to the police. For the full-time fire brigade this call-out proved once again how important the support of volunteers is. Nearly 100 fire fighters were involved during this fire - many of them from voluntary brigades. „We needed more manpower due to this special situation“, said fire brigade spokesperson Frank Frenser. Due to its location in a back yard, the apartment block was not reachable with the large fire engines. They didn’t fit through the drive, the narrow gate. Thus the officer-in-charge ordered more units to the scene. Many hoses needed to be unrolled from the street to the yard to make extinguishing the fire possible.

„This is a construction situation which we find quite often here in Bonn“, said Frenser. Legally no problem, as long as the buildings don’t exceed a certain height. If a house is higher than seven metres, it needs to be accessible for turnable ladder engines. „Everything under seven metres we can reach with our common ladders.“

With those, and through the use of a large number of hoses, the brigade is not necessarily slower to attack the fire but more staff is required. „For the first hit (on the blaze) the full-time fire brigade is sufficiently equipped“, explained Frenser. But the longer the blaze needs to be fought, the more support is needed by volunteers.

The volunteers include help organisations like the Malteser, who cater for the fire fighters during a call-out.

Read our report on the fire earlier this week here.

(Original Text: Nicolas Ottersbach, Translation: Mareike Graepel)