fails in MSB preparation when forest fires accelerated



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Already on May 25, the MSB, the Social Welfare and Emergency Agency, addressed a message to the public: Extremely high fire risk in several parts of Sweden.

A few weeks later, they found that the risk of fires in many places was higher than during the large forest fires in Västmanland in 2014.

At the beginning of June, the first fires in big fires broke out. MSB has assessed the situation so seriously that the authority has created a special organization for the risk of forest fire.

MSB is responsible for the coordination of emergency preparedness in Sweden. Compared to the Västmanland fire in 2014, MSB acted faster to seek international assistance, which is well known to the government.

– I think you are doing a great job on behalf of all concerned authorities. The signal I receive from people who joined the Västmanland fire in 2014 is that it is better organized and better organized now, said Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist on Tuesday. a press conference.

DN's review of the Authority's internal documents shows that the organization was still not prepared when forest fires began to spread.

DN reports revealed revealing that officials from different departments of MSB Already early in the summer, there was a shortage of staff due to holidays and the planned relocation of authority to Karlstad. As early as June, the team is described as "somewhat tense", to be described later as "extremely thin" in some departments.

Read more: Dan Eliasson: "We have a great preparation"

In a document of June 12 shows that the strengthening must take place before the summer.

The document also states that General Manager Dan Eliasson must ask managers to recruit staff capable of working: "Reinforcement must be done by the other authority, starting immediately for schooling before vacation. for DG to be clear to department heads, "write the managers.

It is not only the staff who misses him, he even lacks equipment. Reports show that fire hoses begin to expire in June and that paper cards are not available.

The DN examination shows that staffing shortages continue during the summer weeks. Staff requests can be repeated several times. This also applies to the "GIS function" that works with the analysis of geographic data. MSB staff warned of the imminent shortage of GIS employees as the entire function will be vacant for three weeks in July.

On July 14, the great Ljusdal fire in Gävleborg will expire. time.

MSB's internal report shows how to apply for GIS support at this stage, such as an on-going fire map and critical infrastructure. MSB finally finds two people who can step in and work.

Aud Sjökvist, the government's special investigator for the Westman fire, says that the lack of personnel and preparation is incredible.

– How to be in this situation is incomprehensible. Given the important mission of the Authority, they must at least be able to make a minimum effort, it is totally unacceptable to talk about vacations.

On July 17, MSB is still looking for a firefighter. It's going slowly. In a message, a manager writes that it is difficult to search for the right skills in the agency's resource database. The measure envisaged is to print information sheets "and to send them".

According to DN's tasks, the main forest fire experts were not even asked to participate in the work of the MSB. Instead, they have direct contact with the emergency services in the field.

– It is extremely strange, especially since it has only been a few years since the forest was burned in Västmanland. There are, of course, people to hire quickly if you want, "says Aud Sjökvist

Later in the internal reports MSB finds that the agency needs to review the entire database to find the right people. The wildfires of 2018 are an exceptional and difficult situation that becomes even more obvious when the operations manager of MSB describes his situation at a staff meeting: "For the first time, the needs of the rescue services exceed the capacity of MSB. and resources.

He goes on:

"The resource resources of the emergency services are starting to grow, but especially the rescue staff are starting to run out.

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