Global Fire Fighters Germany - Firefighters Aid Project
The "GFFG" uses an expedition vehicle with UV drinking water treatment for self-sufficient aid in regions without adequate infrastructures.
"Global Fire Fighters Germany" (GFFG) is an aid initiative of the fire protection engineers Jürgen Sprengel and Harald Schillegger from Dortmund. The aid project, which is unique in this form worldwide, is realized as a project trip with a four-wheel expedition vehicle. Equipped with firefighting equipment and rescue material, the vehicle is a rolling accommodation for the project team and also serves as an initial response vehicle. In sparsely populated regions that do not have their own fire or rescue service infrastructures, help can be directed immediately in the event of traffic accidents or medical emergencies, for example. The project vehicle is equipped for weeks of self-sufficient use, far from civilization, and has a range of more than 2,000 kilometers.
The project route roughly follows the course of the Panamericana. On its roughly two-year journey from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, GFFG focuses on firefighting safety training. They are actively networking between fire departments in donor countries and countries in need to initiate equipment assistance and improve the desperate situation of highly motivated but often woefully under-equipped fire departments in countries along the project route. In addition, the GFFG will propagate the system of volunteer fire departments based on the German model and provide active suggestions for the conversion of old civilian or military vehicles into improvised fire fighting vehicles. The initiators would like to promote international fire department comradeship and peaceful cooperation between nations. The GFFG are committed to the principles of the United Nations and act politically neutral and independent.
Drinking water treatment in a four-wheel expedition vehicle
The route planned for the firefighting aid project leads through areas where the public water supply is problematic or where there is simply no water supply. Therefore, for the implementation of the project, it is important that the expedition vehicle is as self-sufficient as possible in terms of its own water and electricity supply. At the same time, the available space on board must be used as efficiently as possible, since only a limited drinking water volume of 300 liters can be carried.
When converting the project vehicle, the task was to design a system that would allow the use of various freshwater sources. The space-saving installation, the reliable as well as energy-efficient sterilization of the water and the possibility of releasing the drinking water to the outside were the prioritized requirements. In the PURION 1000 from UV Concept, Jürgen Sprengel and Harald Schillegger found a powerful UV water disinfection system that met their requirements. The system ensures the drinking water supply of the all-wheel drive project vehicle.
Why a drinking water system from UV Concept?
On previous trips to areas with poor drinking water quality, the initiators made do by consuming only mineral water. During stays in Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia) they became seriously ill despite all precautionary measures and had to be medically treated. The cause of the infections was contaminated water, which is used locally in many restaurants to wash the dishes.
During some expedition trips through the Australian deserts, the difficult water logistics were a particular challenge. At that time, for example, the GFFG expedition team had no way of treating water in the rented off-road vehicles so that they could use the old cattle wells along the Canning Stock Route. So they were forced to carry large quantities of drinking water in addition to the large fuel reserves. Even then, Jürgen Sprengel and Harald Schillegger asked themselves how a drinking water purification system on board an off-road vehicle would have to be designed.
The duration of the planned project along the Panamericana makes a permanent water supply from bottles or canisters impossible. Environmental protection aspects, especially the avoidance of packaging waste, availability as well as the high costs speak against it. In addition to clean drinking water for self-supply and distribution to outsiders, water is also needed for daily personal hygiene and laundry - and this reliably at every location along the project route, in the wilderness of Alaska as well as in Nicaragua or Guatemala.
The use of UV Concept's water disinfection system ensures that clean drinking water of excellent quality is reliably available at every location along the project route. And this not only for the project team itself, but due to the high performance of the UV system also for other task forces if necessary, as drinking water can be generated from surface water at any time.
The installation
A specialist company was engaged for the installation of the UV system. According to their statement, the implementation of the UV filter into the existing system was uncomplicated. Thus, the compact UV disinfection system could be excellently integrated into the overall concept of the drinking water filter system.
The drinking water filter system consists of several elements. Most of them are mounted on an extendable "filter shelf" for easy maintenance. The water is either fed into the drinking water filter system from the local pressurized water network or drawn from a well or surface water by means of a suitable submersible pump. It then first flows through a three-stage filter cascade consisting of a filter screen, a coarse filter and a fine filter. This allows water that is not free of suspended solids to be fed in if necessary. The water then flows through the heart of the filter system, a PURION 1000 UV filter. Behind this there is a small water outlet on the side. This is used to drain the water until the operating temperature of the UV lamp is reached. In addition, the quality of the filtered water can be checked here, at least roughly, with a TDS tester. A delivery hose can also be connected to this side outlet and filtered water can be delivered to third parties. If the side outlet is closed, the filtered water is fed into the drinking water supply tank. Fresh The prefiltered water is kept fresh in the drinking water tank with the aid of silver nets. In the main drinking water distributor, a carbon filter is located behind the pressure equalization vessel. In the kitchenette there is a separate tap just for drinking water. This is agains protected by a final filter (ceramic element with 0,1 μm passage size) to prevent back contamination of the drinking water line. A special feature of the project vehicle is that, via a transfer pump, water can also be taken from theA special feature of the project vehicle is that water can be pumped from the drinking water supply tank into the extinguishing water supply tank via a transfer pump to supply a water fog extinguishing system. The highly sensitive water fog extinguishing system only works properly with reliably filtered water. This comparatively high expenditure resulted from the requirement to be able to use fresh water for our project wherever it is available. After all, clean drinking and process water is of elementary importance for the health of the project team and thus for the success of the project.
Why UV Concept?
Jürgen Sprengel and Harald Schillegger first became aware of UV Concept during an Internet search and then held intensive trade fair discussions with WM Aquatec and Dr. Wipprich, the managing director of PURION GmbH, during the planning of the drinking water filter system.
The team of the GFFG would decide any time again for a product of UV Concept. The excellent consulting, coupled with the technology and market leadership in the field of mobile UV drinking water disinfection and last but not least the excellent and high-quality engineering solutions, have more than convinced.