Fire, Rescue & New Challenges Ostrava, day 2

The morning session of Day 2 started with a great presentation by Dr Aleš Jug, chair of the CTIF Fire Prevention Commission, followed by an equally brilliant lecture form Folkert van der Ploeg, who represents the newest of the CTIF working groups, the CTIF Fire Investigations´Working Group.

Read more about the CTIF Yearly Seminar here:

Ostrava Seminar Coverage by Bjorn Ulfsson / CTIF Communications Coordinator

After the morning break, Dr Sokolov Sergej from Russia presented on the work of the CTIF Fire Statistics Center, whose publications are the most downloaded and sought after on the CTIF.org website. Dr Sergej was accompanied by Margarita Gregorieva, also a member of the CTIF Fire Statistics´Center. She pointed out the importance of each member nation connecting with the Statistics Center to calibrate data and make sure that all data used in the publications are as relevant as possible.

The fourth presentation of the day was Vladimir Vlcek, fire chief of Ostrava, who presented on their new Command and Control Center, the Integrated Safety Center, of the Moravian-Silesian Region, and also some information about the fire services in the region in general. 

The last presentation before lunch was Andreas Rieger, fire service media professional for the fire services in Austria, who lectured about the importance of Social Media Awareness for firefighters. The lecture on the Media Competence Initiative for firefighters was focused on how everything a firefighter says, likes or choses to show on the internet, can have an impact on their reputation - and their fire brigade´s reputation - whether they are full time professionals or volunteers.

After lunch, Roman Sykora, chair of the HazMat Commission, started the afternoon sessions with a presentation on the battery fire extinguishing tests the commission has performed.

Then, CTIF Special Adviser Dennis Davis presented an in depth analysis of the Grenfell Tower fire, with any new graphics not before shown in his previous presentations on the subject. 

After the second coffee break, the Tommy Backgaard-Kjaer held a shorter version of his powerful presentation on firefighters´ health.

The followed a short presentation by Chief Susanna Klatt from the CTIF Commission for Women in Fire & Rescue.

The last presentation of the seminar was held by Mr Tore Eriksson, President of CTIF since 2012, who delivered an important message on Lessons Learned; Past & Future -  to not forget the knowledge of the past, and to document  all important lessons and experiences learned so they can be passed on to others. 

"We tend to want to re-invent the wheel! If firefighters have known something in the past, the knowledge and the lessons are often still valid and can be adopted. We forget what we already know, way to easily", said Tore Eriksson. 

Stay tuned to CTIF.org for more complete and edited versions of these video lectures in our future - soon to come - video lecture library!

Mr Eriksson also announced that next years "Fire, Rescue & New Challenges 2020" (Year 3!) will be held in Olso, Norway during October 2020.

It will be held by CTIF Norway with the help of CTIF Sweden, at the Oslo Airport, who has an excellent conference center right at the airport. 

Exact dates for next year´s seminar will be announced soon!