RUNES
Reconfigurable Ubiquitous Networked Embedded Systems

Dr Holger de Vries, a member of the German fire service for over 20 years and a lecturer at the University of Wuppertal, shared his experiences in fire fighting procedures with the members of the RUNES consortium during the fourth project meeting which was organised by the Department of Electronics and Informatics of the Politecnico di Milano during 3-5 Oct 2005.

His presentation covered the types of responses to fire incidents and the way triage is carried out on-scene. Special emphasis was given on the multiple radio communication systems employed by the fire commanders as well as how these are interfaced to the fixed telecommunication infrastructure.

Some insights into the military terminology used were given, as well as the major differences in how an emergency by military and civilian services is handled. The importance of clustering and filtering information was highlighted. On their way to an incident firefighters put on a lot of gear. Any additional items a project like RUNES is to suggest must be easy to put on and robust.

A very interesting Q&A session followed where the consortium had the opportunity to discuss issues related to personal protective equipment, strategic management in public administration, deployment analysis, and training of fire and emergency services.

Dr Holger de Vries consulting for the RUNES road tunnel fire scenario.