Two traumas. Five years ago, endless heat wave during the holidays. The worst since, although due to global warming there have been other warm spells. In July 2018, Colonel Marc Gilbert, head of the Val de Sambre zone, shook. Field fires, farm machinery, wasp nests, crappy barbecues, scout camps going haywire, dehydrated seniors on the brink of death… After several weeks, he even plans to call back volunteers or vacation professionals… Even to sign , to which he is entitled, a requisition that allows him to appeal to civilians, the Red Cross or civil protection for example, or to appropriate equipment,…
In 2021, floods hit the Wallonia region. Balance: 39 dead. “It was chaos. The zone managers communicated by WhatsApp. ‘Can you send me an ambulance to such a place'”, recalls Marc Gilbert.
A year after the floods in Pepinster, his restaurant, destroyed, is still closed: “The insurance companies are hanging around, the work has not started”
Have we learned the lessons of the past? “I want to say yes, but no”, states Eric Labourdette, permanent SLFP firemen. “Rescue areas have taken initiatives by sending their firefighters for training in France for diving rescue or fighting forest fires. But nothing structural. Civilian security has always been the bad relationship.”
No Canadairs flights in Belgium. Only two police “supercopters” that can carry 1,000 liters of water, where the French Canadairs have a capacity of 8,000 liters. “And again, one of the two is HS. A new one will be needed. Below recent forest fires, the only remaining one had to go back and forth between Bastogne and Fagnes.“
Heat, drought, records and water reserves: what awaits us this summer
After the floods in 2021 there was a working group in the region of Wallonia. “I do not agree with his conclusions”, says Marc Gilbert, president of the French-speaking Federation of Firefighters. “Is there a problem? Create a municipal shelter. Then provincially. So regional. So federally. In the end, it’s chaos. There should be a single call center per region. And if one fails, the other two fill in.”
The lessons of the heat waves of 2018, Marc Gilbert kept them. “I am for professional firefighters. But you have to finance them. In general, there are one third of professionals for two thirds of the volunteers waiting at home to be called. I decided to no longer consider the professionals and the volunteers indiscriminately. The volunteers stand guard at the barracks. They are considered the professionals. They have their formations in shifts. They have a fixed income guarantee at the end of the month. They are semi-professional. I went to a quarter of the professionals, three quarters of the volunteers. But the bottom line is that when I tell them that the MRI is scaremongering and that they shouldn’t stray from home, they get involved and they do.“
