A real hero – the alumnus who thought outside the box in a real crisis

"The bomb blew out the fire one hundred metres around the bombsite” During his fire safety engineering studies at the Faculty of Engineering, he could never have imagined that during the summer of 2018 he would order a JAS fighter jet to bomb a forest fire. Johan Szymanski is the Chief Emergency Services Officer in the municipalities of Mora and Orsa. During three weeks in July, he was Incident Commander during the worst fire in Swedish modern history. Against all odds, no one was seriously injured in the fire. He graduated as a fire safety engineer in 2010 and remembers his student years as fun and educational: “The degree prepared me well for the work in my role.” And boy, has he worked. Johan Szymanski’s firefighting has reverberated around the world with the New York Times, among others, writing about his way of thinking outside the box. On Thursday 12 July, Johan Szymanski returned from a week’s holiday with a feeling of unease. It had been extremely hot for a long time. He knew something was going to happen. The only question was when? A dry thunderstorm, and no rain, blew in during the day “We received around ten alerts in the municipalities of Mora and Älvdalen. We drove from one place to the next to extinguish the fires. But one of the fires, at the Trängslet shooting range, flared again on the Friday”, says Johan Szymanski. On Sunday 15 July, the fire spread to a range with unexploded grenades. An area 1000 metres from the seat of the fire was cordoned off when the ammunition began to explode in the heat.

Fighting fires Johan Szymansky was assigned overall responsibility for the response. As Incident Commander, he relied on the different skills available in the leadership group. A person with a military background sees things in a certain way; a fire safety engineer or police officer has a different approach, he explains. ”I worked alongside a deputy chief fire officer. We were not relieved as incident commanders, as would normally be the case.  It provided continuity and security since the media had contact with the same people.” When fighting forest fires, you have to have an impact on at least one of the basic elements that feed the fire: oxygen, heat and fuel. However, exploding ammunition created a unique circumstance, because crews could not get close to the fire. ”We looked at alternative solutions. Snow is stockpiled for the Vasaloppet ski race, among other things. We collected 300 000 cubic metres. When fire reaches snow it melts and slows the advance of the fire, we thought. Unfortunately, the hypothesis could not be tested since there was only one de-mined road through the area.” One measure that did work was to starve the fire. As much as 800 hectares of forest was burnt in one of the biggest controlled fires in Swedish history. Oxygen is the third element you can have an impact on. Johan Szymanski contacted the Supreme Commander and was given the green light to bomb the fire with a Saab 39 Gripen plane. “It was planning for the worst-case scenario. If the fire had turned south, the towns in Älvdalen and Mora would have been at risk of burning down. The bomb blew out the fire 100 metres around the bombsite. It was a successful experiment”, says Johan Szymanski. Text: Stefan Danielsson

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