Major firefighting operation

Austrian army: forest caught fire during live firing

(Bild: Bundesheer/ Schweiger Markus und Trummer Andreas Krone/KREATIV)

Only recently, the province of Styria issued a warning - not least because of the inferno in the Rax region - about the great danger of forest fires. As if to confirm this, there was a large-scale operation in St. Michael on Wednesday. Tracer ammunition ignited the fire at the army firing range there, but it is now under control. No one was injured.

According to the army, the so-called target area, i.e. the slope behind the targets, caught fire at the Ortnerhof shooting range at around 11.30 am. As there has been hardly any precipitation for weeks, everything is very dry there - tracer ammunition fired during live firing therefore ignited a fire.

15 fire departments in action
The flames spread quickly. In the afternoon, 15 fire departments, two army tankers, an army helicopter and an Interior Ministry helicopter were deployed. The fire covered an area of around one hectare.

"The fire is under control, we are close to 'fire out'", said head of operations Markus Schwaiger to the "Krone" shortly after 3 pm. The fire department is flying drones over the slope to find any remaining pockets of embers and then extinguish them. "The cooperation between the organizations worked extremely well," praises Schwaiger.

There was already a fire in 2019
Over two years ago, on April 25, 2019, a signal cartridge had also started a fire on the steep slope. The signal cartridge fired from a 57 flare pistol (LP57) had not completely burned out and had fallen into the steep slope, where the fire broke out half an hour later.