Exercise: Major forest fire on the border between Germany and Belgium
To keep the cooperation between the emergency control rooms in our Euregio sharp, two joint control room exercises are organised each year. On 7 October 2025, Kreis Euskirchen took on the role of incident control room during a realistic scenario involving a wildfire on the border between Belgium and Germany.
Learning together with, from and about cross-border cooperation within the framework of EMRIC is an integral part of our daily work. In this context, two so-called control room exercises are held annually to promote exchange and coordination between the control rooms involved.
On 7 October 2025, it was the turn of the district of Euskirchen to take on the role of the so-called operations control centre. Together with Markus Neuburg and Achim Niessen, a realistic exercise scenario was developed: a large-scale forest fire in the border area between Germany and Belgium.
The exercise team was assembled accordingly and all preparations for the exercise were completed. The team was supplemented by observers from the DG rescue zone and a colleague from the Corps Grand-Ducal Incendie & Secours (fire brigade and rescue service) from Luxembourg.
The exercise began at 10 a.m. sharp with the first report to the Euskirchen control centre. During the following hour and a half, the focus was on passing on information about the operation and requesting support from neighbouring German districts and the EMRIC network.
The exercise leaders fed several simulated incidents into the system. The dispatchers at the Euskirchen control centre were tasked with recording the information, communicating with the incident commander on site, informing other control centres and sending out warning messages via the MOWAS system to alert the population in the affected area.
In accordance with the EMRIC agreements, an information message was sent to the control centres in Belgium and the Netherlands. At the same time, assistance was requested for fighting the forest fire, providing water for extinguishing the fire and transporting water over a large area.
The aim of the exercise was to practise the cross-border transfer of information and the request for international assistance via EMRIC. This goal was achieved at 11:30 a.m. – at this point, the responses to the requests were received and processed via the Euskirchen control centre.
On behalf of EMRIC, we would like to express our sincere thanks to the district of Euskirchen for their excellent cooperation, their warm welcome, the organisation of the exercise and the dedicated work of the exercise team. Special thanks also go to all other participants for their valuable support.
Of course, we also gained insights from the exercise that we can learn from – in line with our guiding principle: ‘So that we can be better tomorrow than we are today.’
