Haar near Munich – THW is expanding its location – district of Munich

Just recently, a truck overturned on the A 99, with crates of beer, soda and cyclists lying on the road. Two days later, part of the roof of a school collapsed in Pullach. And then there was a fire in a recycling plant in Garching. The Technical Relief Agency (THW) in the district was in action, with umpteen people. All volunteers who move out from the disaster control center in Haar as soon as they are needed. “We’re already hitting high levels,” says Christian Dietrich, deputy local officer for the unit, which is attracting more and more attention with its royal blue vehicles at a time when major disasters are piling up. Whether it’s flooding in the Ahr Valley, the Corona crisis or war in Ukraine – the THW is always challenged.

Anyone who is needed so often and is called out with their device when things get really complicated must also be well equipped. Technology is advancing and regulations are becoming stricter. In this respect, no one in Haar was very surprised when the building committee of the municipal council was about to deal with an expansion of the THW location on Vockestraße. The THW is the only central unit of this kind housed in a 40-year-old hall. A new hall almost 60 meters long, 25 meters wide and a good nine meters high is now to be built. The project is not entirely controversial, after all it is located in a protected forest. But the responsible state building authority in Freising explains that the questions of forest and nature conservation law have been clarified with the higher authorities. It will be reforested, for example, to replace deforestation on the edge of the forest area, north of the Isar-Amper-Klinikum.

The council doesn’t mind. The citizens of Haar, on the other hand, have doubts as to whether the upcoming fellings are really necessary. However, the THW sees no alternative. “We simply have a space problem,” says Christian Dietrich. The vehicles are larger today than they used to be and are almost at the entrance gate. The THW is also upgrading: Until recently, for example, there was a rubber dinghy for rescue operations on the Isar. Now you go out with a stable boat that has to be stored, such as the forklift, the excavator, the wheel loader and also the eight-meter-long multi-purpose vehicle with an empty weight of almost ten tons, which has been in use since 2021. “We have to open the gate to get from one vehicle to another,” says Dietrich. The hall is much too cramped and also too low.

The 50 helpers work more than 10,000 hours a year – on a voluntary basis

The Munich-Land branch of the THW has existed since April 1974 and has been an integral part of the disaster control center in Haar since 1988 with the Haar fire brigade, the works fire brigade of the Isar-Amper-Klinikum and the Munich-Land ABC train. The task force in Haar, which consists of more than 50 active volunteers, is on the one hand an element of the federal civil protection and disaster control organization, which reports to the Ministry of the Interior in Berlin and has its central administration in Bonn; a large part of the funding comes from the federal government. On the other hand, there is also the area that Christian Dietrich calls “Öga” for short: local emergency response operations are carried out at district and community level.

In short, the THW is ready for large, comprehensive operations such as in the Ahr Valley, but also when it comes to recovering the load from an overturned truck on the motorway or quickly covering a school roof again. For 300 days at a time, the THW local branch based in Haar also looked after the central warehouse for aids to combat the corona pandemic, which was set up for the whole of Bavaria near Garching. There they were permanently on duty with ten people at a time, says Dietrich. The storage and issue of the stocks had to be organized and in an emergency one had to act quickly. If, for example, a ventilator was missing in northern Bavaria. “Then you go to the Upper Palatinate,” says Dietrich.

Open detailed view

A large number of the 50 Haar volunteers were also deployed during the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley in 2021. The civil defense and disaster control operation ran for six weeks at a time, with the Haar-based company leading an association with more than 30 vehicles. In the past few months, aid has been brought to Ukraine. Cases in which the THW moves out to support the fire brigade units in the district because special skills are required are considered “local hazard prevention”. The THW has clearing equipment, an emergency generator, pump vehicles, containers and much more. The THW homepage alone has counted five missions since the beginning of June, and since then two have been added, says Dietrich. The demands that have clearly increased over the past three or four years have sapped the strength of the colleagues, says the deputy local officer. Around 10,000 hours are volunteered each year. “You can tell from the people that at some point the air is out.”

After the expansion, the hall will have 13 parking spaces for emergency vehicles. Also planned is a parking area on which vehicles have a turning circle of 24 meters. According to the Haar town hall, the project enjoys a special status as a civil civil protection project. The community is only heard in the process. In case of doubt, the federal and state governments can decide on the construction project in the Bannwald, even beyond the municipality and the district office.