Six Cows Burnt Alive in a Fire!

A huge conflagration started in a cot in Finiș, Bihor county. This tragically put an end to the lives of eight cattle despite the desperate efforts of the military firefighters.

The lack of water supply and of a road to that particular place hindered excessively the firefighters’ intervention. The harsh conditions proved one more time that their professionalism goes beyond the drawbacks when they need to help others !

On Thursday, January 16th, at 13:30, an emergency call to 112 was telling about a fire at a cot in Finiș. The „Crișana” Inspectorate for Emergency Situations dispatched three teams of military firefighters of Beiuș Squad. Upon their arrival, the fire had burnt the cot’s roof and were extremely violent on the inside. The commander took imediat measures in order to extinguish it and to evacuate the flammable material (agriculture gear) from the respective area.

The cot, which was located behind the houses, up on an isolated hilly area, belonged to Erzsebet B. and it had been built a project financed with European money. The conflagration had been noticed by the neighbours living behind the house, who immediately called for firefighters and ran to the stable trying to save the cattle sheltered there. „I saw the flames at the window and then tried to do something. When I got there I saw the entire barn burning like a torch. I managed to take out only two of the eight cows.”, says A.N. visibly affected by the tragedy he had witnessed. A third cow, literally burning, fell in pain on the barn’s doorstep, watched by the firefighters and the villagers who were unable to save it.

The mission of putting out the fire went under extremely difficult conditions. Basically, it was impossible for the firefighters to get with the fire trucks to the place because there was no road leading there. For this particular reason, the military firefighters managed to drive the trucks only on a side narrow path, on a sort of approach road improvised by one of the locals, thus managing to get as close as 100 m to the place.

Another difficult issue that the firefighters had to tackle during the intervention was the lack of any water supply. A drawback too oftenly tackled by Romanian rescuers on their missions. Of the five village hydrants not one of them worked. The firefighters tried at first to get water supply through the use of a transportable power pump, from a close well, the water passing through two C-type pipes, through the distributor. Unfortunately, in less than 15 minutes, the water was exhausted, the firefighters being forced to look for an alternative solution. In this context, the fire trucks had to get water supply from Beiuș which is located at approximately 5 km from Finiș.

The ATI truck, due to its gauge, could not even get to the improvised approach road to the fire. From it there had to be improvised a 200 m long device connecting the APCA Roman and MAN trucks. One of the locals later came up with the idea to get water from a sort of dam, built up on the hill by another local. Thus, the firefighters managed to directly get water from that pond, located 100 m from the fire. So they once again used the transportable power pump.

On this difficult mission took part 18 under-officers and two officers: Lt.col. Marius Smolinschi -commander of Salonta Intervention Team 3 – who professionally supervised the intervention – and lt. Alin Stanciu – assistant to the commander of Beiuș Department. The fight with the fire and the drawbacks took approximately three hours and 40 minutes, the firefighters managing to save the agriculture gear close by the cot. Together with the militaries took part in this mission members of the Finiș Voluntary Aid for Emergency Situations.

We should also note that Finiș is a village, like many others of this type in Romania, where the houses are built in a fortress-type pattern, i.e. they are serried to one another. Under these conditions, the lack of water supply can trigger real tragedies. Let us all hope that this unfortunate event managed to sound the alarm for the local and county authorities, especially that they run a very costly project of water supply in the commune.

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