New season
“Fire & Flame” are now blazing in Duisburg
Two firefighters from Fire and Rescue Station 3 in Duisburg in full gear. photo
© Sebastian Drolshagen/WDR/dpa
They work with aerial photographs, questionnaires and heart: the firefighters of Duisburg help at lightning speed. One of the most popular documentary series on German television has a new setting.
“It said: One person is still in the building,” says professional firefighter Carlos (35). “We don’t know: Is it on the window? Is it on the balcony? Is there even a way to the back. These are things that we look at from the aerial photos and plan accordingly.” The TV series “Fire & Flame” is back.
After Gelsenkirchen and Bochum, Duisburg is the third station of the successful documentary format on West German Radio. The eighth season starts on Thursday (May 23rd) at 8:15 p.m. on WDR television. “Feuer & Flamme” has a lot of fans, not just in North Rhine-Westphalia and not just on linear television. The everyday heroes also play excellently in the ARD media library and on YouTube. They sometimes receive millions of clicks.
Ruhr area people stick together
On the one hand, this has to do with the calm style: there is no voice-over. The professionals speak for themselves. Only ominous music accompanies the action. Drone shots – now an annoying constant in the third programs – are only used sparingly. The resident who was rescued unconscious from the stairwell by the “assault team” is not filmed forever. One of the rescuers only speaks to him briefly and asks about possible other people in the attic.
It needs to be clarified who else could be in which apartment. The forces go around with a kind of questionnaire. The drawing shows the apartment building in cross section, with more and more apartments ticked off.
The second strength of this series is the humanity that characterizes many people in the Ruhr area. “Let’s get this under control so that the shit doesn’t spread,” is a firefighter’s graphic instruction to his colleague. “Don’t forget your keys,” one of the emergency services says carefully to a woman he is leading out of the house next door. The neighbors stick together, get a garden bench for the seniors and a bottle of mineral water for the firefighters. A little girl gives the visibly touched helpers a bag of peanuts.
Inside the house, two men wearing heavy breathing apparatus are wading through soot, rubble and debris. In the middle of it all is a deformed, old-fashioned ribbed heater. High flames have charred the rustic oak wall unit, and the backs of the dining room chairs look as if they’ve been bitten off in half. “At 400 degrees, plaster starts to flake off. And it’s completely gone,” says a fireman. His colleague estimates it was probably 800 degrees. According to initial findings, an oxygen bottle belonging to the old man in the room accelerated the fire. The man who lived here will die a week after the fire from the effects of smoke inhalation.
Camera teams accompanied the firefighters in the Ruhr area for 70 days, around the clock. Up to 40 special cameras – so-called body cameras – were in use, some of them at the same time. “I am impressed by how much courage and heart the fire departments have every day to save lives and ensure safety,” says WDR program director information, fiction and entertainment, Jörg Schönenborn. “Thank you to the Duisburg firefighters for welcoming us with so much trust and for giving us an intensive insight into their work. Anyone who is prepared every day to save the lives of others at great personal risk is doing a great service to the community’s solidarity Company.”