Wildfire experiment to evaluate different firefighting strategies

Wildfire experiment to evaluate different firefighting strategies

responsible: District Fire Brigade Goslar

Extinguishing responsibly – comparing three strategies
Whether water, wetting agents, or controlled burn-off with retardant: emergency crews now have several methods available to combat vegetation fires. But which of these not only extinguishes fires most effectively, but also places the least burden on soil and drinking water in sensitive regions such as the Harz?

The Goslar District Fire Brigade Association is addressing this question through a unique fire experiment: across four comparable plots in the Goslar municipal forest, all three firefighting strategies will be tested under controlled, realistic conditions—documented through video footage, time measurements, and records of the quantities of extinguishing agents used.

As a large-scale regional exercise, the experiment also brings together fire brigades from across the Harz region and provides practical operational experience that has so far been lacking in training. The results will feed directly into operational guidelines for environmentally compatible vegetation-fire suppression in drinking-water catchment areas.

Forest fire experiment
Forest fire experiment
First fire experiment on 28.08.2026 #mistregen
Fotos: Lea Deutsch, Elisabeth Dietze

Löschstrategie1
Löschstrategie2
Löschstrategie3
Fotos: Dorothee Post funded by Eva-Maria-Stihl-Stiftung (CLaRe)


Contact:
District Fire Chief
Udo Löprich
38640 Goslar
kreisbrandmeister@landkreis-goslar.de