From toolmaker to fire chief

They keep out of the spotlight and not much is known about their work. Even so, they are an essential part of the car development and production process. This episode of our Škoda Storyboard series showcases the company’s fire brigade.

17. 9. 2024 Lifestyle

How often are they called out and what do their typical response operations involve? What special equipment do they have? All this and more will be revealed by Zdeněk Thér, the commander of the Škoda Fire and Rescue Service unit at the Kvasiny production plant.

This proud native of the town of Kvasiny got introduced to firefighting by getting involved in the local club’s firefighting sport teams. The boys’ team wasn’t particularly successful and eventually disbanded, but the girls did better: they became national champions. Having taken a liking to this field, Zdeněk Thér acted as the teams’ service man, driving the fire engine, preparing equipment etc. In this way he developed an understanding of firefighting equipment. His apprenticeship was in toolmaking, though, and he worked in the Kvasiny car plant for about a year in this position and then spent several years as a maintenance technician in the welding shop.

Zdeněk Thér

“In 1993 a firefighting position became available. I applied and got the job. I worked as a rank-and-file firefighter. There were only three of us then, one for each shift. After the turn of the millennium, when the new paint shop, assembly facility and welding plant were built, the decision was made to establish a proper fire protection unit. After that we worked twelve-hour shifts, there were sixteen of us and I had the command role. In 2005, when the Roomster assembly shed was expanded, the number of firefighters was increased to meet the legislative requirements. The unit consists of a commander and firefighters divided into four shifts to ensure round-the-clock fire protection for the company,” the commander explains.

In the heart of the action and behind a desk

And what’s a typical working day for him now? The company’s fire protection unit covers the entire plant and two other facilities owned by the company – the dealership in Kvasiny and the development department. At all those sites the company commander has the right of priority command, which means that even if the state fire service units from nearby Rychnov nad Kněžnou or Dobruška respond, they have to take orders from him. The company firefighters can also go to the scene of traffic accidents or fires outside the plant.

The fire chief spends most of his time in the office these days.

“We go to the scenes of accidents with a fast response vehicle, and to fires with a tanker truck that carries 8,500 litres of water and 1,000 litres of foam,” Thér says. “What makes us different from other units is that we are contacted by the ambulance dispatch centre when someone in one of the surrounding municipalities suffers a sudden health emergency. We go to the scene as well as the ambulance service and are tasked with providing pre-medical care, especially for heart attacks as we have two cars equipped with an AED, an automated external defibrillator. We’ve carried out a number of successful interventions where we have been able to resuscitate a patient. And some of them were our company colleagues or their relatives.”

Zdeněk Thér in the Kvasiny fire protection unit’s garage

The commander admits that he now spends most of his time behind a desk, though. Does he ever take on a routine shift with his colleagues so he doesn’t get out of practice? “Occasionally. But I don't usually go out for routine operations, like when a hydraulic oil leak is reported, which happens about ninety times a year. On the other hand, I do join in when it’s a special emergency – like recently, when a flammable vapour and gas detection alarm went off in a paint shop four metres below ground, which certainly isn’t an everyday occurrence.” It turned out to be a false alarm, but with 9,235 detectors and sensors on the Kvasiny plant site you’re going to get false alarms from time to time.

Tanker trucks, ambulance, Cobra

The Kvasiny firefighters have two tankers, known as CAS20 and CAS40 (the numbers indicate the pump capacity). The smaller one is the first-choice tanker which always goes out. The larger one is only used when more water is needed for a serious fire, because it can carry eight and a half thousand litres of water. The unit also has a platform with a ladder that can reach a height of 42 metres. The container carrier, a piece of equipment the fire protection unit bought three years ago, is ready for any problem with electric vehicles. The truck carries a floodable container; a car with a high-voltage system fault is loaded into the container by means of a winch or loading arm. The container is then flooded with water, cooling the battery and preventing air from reaching the battery.

The company fire chief takes charge of any operation on Škoda’s premises

Smaller pieces of kit include a Volkswagen Transporter rapid response vehicle, which carries standard accident response equipment like hydraulic shears, spreaders and the like. There is also a Volkswagen Crafter ambulance, which the fire crew use to provide pre-medical first aid, both on the plant’s premises and elsewhere, and to transport employees to and from medical facilities. The last vehicle in the fleet is a minibus used to transport firefighters for training, as a replacement vehicle for the ambulance and also as a back-up vehicle for treating injured employees in the event of a major emergency.

Thermal imaging cameras are another essential piece of equipment. “They are the firefighter’s second eyes, and we couldn’t manage without them today. Once an area is filled with smoke and you can’t make anything out, the thermal camera shows you the layout of the space and where the fire is,” Thér explains.

The full line-up of fire-fighting equipment at Kvasiny

One very interesting and special feature of the two fire engines is the CCS Cobra extinguishing system, which operates at a pressure of around 300 bar. Abrasives can be mixed into the water, which creates enough power to pierce a hole in concrete or cut through a rail, so it can penetrate through building structures to reach enclosed spaces that are on fire. The Cobra tool can then deliver sixty litres of water per minute through a hole about three millimetres in diameter. It works with a special nozzle that produces water droplets several times smaller than found in conventional jets. Because of their small size, these droplets take away a lot of heat and reduce the temperature considerably in a short time.

“Just as all Škoda employees undergo training, it is important for us to practise the procedures in real conditions. We train with the Cobra system in the former military training zone in Ralsko, where we are borrowing an old guard house from the state fire service, and inside that we burn wood or pallets. The fire can raise the temperature to six hundred to seven hundred degrees. We get to work on it with the Cobra and then the guys go inside to finish extinguishing the fire. Within two minutes, we bring the temperature down to about 130 to 170 degrees, which makes it much more comfortable for firefighters to enter the space,” Thér says.

Kvasiny fire fighters have two tanker trucks: CAS20 and CAS40.

Electric cars and fires? Much ado about nothing

The works firefighters boast another special technology, known as dry foam. Every fire engine has foam, but while normally the foam is just mixed into the water in a certain ratio to produce light, medium or heavy foam, this device is unique in that the foam is combined with the water under pressure from a compressor. The result is a foam that is several times lighter and easier to work with, plus it adheres well to surfaces. “Recently, colleagues described to me a firefighting operation at an off-site car body shop where we were responding as part of the regional fire response plan. They sprayed this foam on the ceiling and load-bearing columns, and the foam basically stuck to them and then dripped down slowly, cooling the surface significantly. This makes the firefighting effect much stronger. Fire suppression is faster, more efficient, and the consequences are less damaging because we use seven times less water, so the space is less waterlogged and dries out faster.”

These days, Zdeněk Thér only takes part in special operations.

Finally, let’s return to electric cars. There are a lot of myths about electric car batteries. How does a firefighter from a company that makes electric cars see it? “We work with traction batteries and EVs a lot in training. As long as you keep an eye on the car’s diagnostics and follow the recommended charging procedure, there’s nothing to worry about. I don’t know of a single case of a high-voltage battery spontaneously catching fire in any car made by a Volkswagen Group company.”