Austria | AT | Wildenau

A small town in Upper Austria

Wildenau—even the name has a wildly romantic ring to it. With its 1,200 inhabitants, a castle, and a lot of green around it, this small town does indeed represent a picturesque alternative to the urban sprawl of skyscrapers and concrete. Although the small town is itself part of a municipality that’s barely larger in size, it still has its own modern fire department. Meet its commander, Karl Karrer: He has held this office for thirty-one years, although he is only fifty-three years old. He took on a lot of responsibility in his hometown fire department at a very early age. And it’s thanks to him that there are seventy-five active firefighters working in Wildenau today. Youth work was important to Karl, but not just in his younger days—it has remained so to this day. And that has borne fruit in the past ten years.

Well equipped from PPE to fleet

Unlike when Karl started out—“back then we had to assemble one of the smaller fire-fighting vehicles ourselves”—the Wildenau Fire Department today has state-of-the-art equipment. Now, they rely exclusively on Rosenbauer products when it comes to personal protective equipment. And there’s a ten-year-old Rosenbauer rescue pumper, a command vehicle, and a crew truck in the garage. Only recently did the fleet get expanded by a Rosenbauer AT, a high-performance fire apparatus. This one-of-a-kind vehicle is primarily built to ensure water delivery over long distances. With its total weight of fourteen tons, Wildenau’s Rosenbauer AT is perfectly suited to transport 1,000-meter (3 280 feet) type B firehoses. But not only that; the AT is also equipped with a Rosenbauer FOX portable pump. Moreover, the vehicle houses equipment for simple technical assistance as well as power generators.

The RTE Robot is here to haul

The Rosenbauer AT, this special high-performance fire-fighting vehicle, is equipped with a rear-mounted tail lift, which allows for comfortable removal of large and heavy equipment. And yet, what the Wildenau Fire Department ordered for the rear storage isn’t quite so big—at least not the base. The base, as it were, is an RTE Robot, a state-of-the-art machine to transport loads and penetrate areas that are too dangerous for humans during fire-fighting operations. This robot was ordered in its wider variant of 1,070 millimeters (42 inches) and measures 120 centimeters (47 inches) in length and only 36 centimeters (14 inches) in height. Yet it can carry loads of up to 600 kilograms (1322 pounds) over impassable, steep terrain. Sitting on this strong, compact structure in Wildenau’s AT is the aforementioned FOX portable pump. The robot carries it in a rolling container, thus making it easy to remove. This is also how the other equipment—mesh transport boxes, for instance —can be taken from A to B.

The RTE Robot as an arm extension

“We didn’t purchase the robot just to transport hoses,” Karl says with a wink, referring to the wide range of options the RTE Robot has to offer. “We wanted to get the utmost from this investment, so we also looked into what else a fire department like Wildenau could do with such a remote-controlled arm.” They subsequently ordered extra modules with fan, turret, and cameras. These make the robot fit for any firefighting operation.

The robot is remote-controlled. The control device, of course, also has a screen that plays the camera images the robot transmits. Remote work has therefore become easy as pie—not from home but from a safe distance.

Why does a village like Wildenau invest in high-tech machinery? Perhaps because it’s what the future of fire-fighting will look like. And the group around Karl Karner prefers pressing forward to lagging behind. Recently, special wildfire-fighting units were installed in each Upper Austrian district. “Wildenau is part of the special unit in the district of Braunau. As a tracked vehicle, the RTE Robot is unbeatable in this regard, especially in off-road fire-fighting operations.”