On Easter Sunday, a reed fire broke out in Biebrza National Park. The next day, the fire occupied an area of about 400 ha, including peat bogs. A 100 soldiers of the 1st Podlasie Territorial Defence Brigade and the operators of the Bayraktar drone from the base in Mirosławec besides participate in the rescue action outside firefighters, foresters and policemen.
After the outbreak of the fire in Biebrza National Park (Moniecki and Augustowski districts in the Podlasie province) 23 fire brigade vehicles, a fire-fighting aircraft and a chopper from the State Forests started to help. However, the situation failed to rapidly master and the fire spread to a difficult, wet and swampy area. More rescuers and aircraft crews came to the scene. On Monday, respective 100 firefighters from the state and volunteer fire departments, policemen, foresters, and farmers who plowed the surrounding area to limit the spread of fire fought against the element.
A large support in the action are soldiers of the 1st Podlasie Territorial Defence Brigade (1 PBOT). As of Monday, there are 100 territorials from the podlaskie battalions (the others are waiting in readiness), which are equipped with peculiar firefighting suits, dampers, etc. This is the equipment that 1 PBOT has been equipped with 2020, erstwhile sub-territoryists besides participated in extinguishing the fire in Biebrza National Park.
According to Captain Justyna Dziemiańczuk, press spokesperson 1 PBOT, soldiers directed to fight the fire conduct regular training in this direction. Capt. Dziemiańczuk adds that little than 2 weeks ago, the “Parasol 25” workshops were held in 1 PBOT with the participation of local authorities and uniformed services from Białystok and the districts of Białystok, Moniecki and Sokólski. The workshops discussed the anticipation of 1 PBOT soldiers acting in a non-military crisis situation and with this kind of action the territorialists from Podlasie are now facing.
The full action was besides engaged by soldiers of 12 Bases of Unmanned Air Ships from Mirosłowiec, which is equipped with Bayraktar TB2 drone. The MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance, or average tallness and long flight time) class crew can spend up to 27 hours in the air, reaching more than 8000 m. During his action in the Biebrza Bayraktar Valley, he conducted reconnaissance flights, sending on a regular basis to the command staff of the image recording he sees and photos. Thanks to thermovision, the Turkish unmanned man was detecting and indicating subsurface peat fires and hidden fire sources.
The Polish Army bought 4 sets of TB2 Bayraktars (six unmanned in each set) in 2021 for about $270 million. Ordered unmanned vehicles were delivered to bases in Mirosławec from 2022 to 2024.
