OBERLECH, AUSTRIA, IS A SKI RESORT IN THE ALPS IN THE FAR WESTERN part of the country. The resort is home to about 30 hotels with more than 1,100 rooms that are filled with vacationers throughout the lengthy ski season.
Oberlech, as is usual for most of Austrian villages, has a volunteer fire brigade that is responsible for the fire protection of the many buildings and visitors. But the Oberlech Feuerwehr has additional problems that we are not used to seeing. For one thing, when the snow arrives, the roads are continually covered and passage is mainly accomplished with ATV’s and similar vehicles.
Compounding the accessability is that the ski runs and slopes cross directly over many of the roadways requiring them to not be plowed. The snow trails are groomed and maintained by the universal trail groomer that is made by PistenBully.
During the winter, normal vehicle access into Oberlech is through a tunnel from the main town of Lech and hotel supplies are delivered through a system of smaller tunnels that connect the hotels and other commercial buildings. This is the usual access for the Lech fire engines that are always sent to assist on any fires, but they are slow to get there and into position. The Oberlech brigade has taken an older PistenBully trail groomer and outfitted it with about 200,000 Euros worth of bodywork and equipment, making it the primary attack piece for any fires in the resort.
The PistenBully pumper carries about 500 gals. of water and over 1,000 ft. of attack line and a 200 gpm (800 lpm) pump. During the winter it rolls first with a driver and 2 FF’s, all of them are usually ski instructors at the lodges. Additional volunteers respond directly to the fire scene.
The mutual aid crews from Lech arrive in the tunnel and then hand-carry their equipment topside where they are met by the regular PistenBullys from the slopes that then transport the crews to the scene.
Firegeezer reader and contributor Christian Lewalter has assembled a 33-image photo gallery of the KLF-W, as it’s known, onto a Flickr page HERE. He also has more detailed specs of the ATV pumper on the left sidebar. Scroll down below the German description and he has inserted an English translation. Our thanks to Christian for his help.
The Lech Vol. Fire Brigade has a website HERE.
Oberlech has a live Webcam that you can view year-round HERE. Just keep in mind that there is a 6-hour time zone difference between there and Eastern time.
