Global Fire Fighters Germany - Fire service aid project 

"Global Fire Fighters Germany" (GFFG) is an aid initiative by 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 materials, the vehicle is a rolling accommodation for the project team and also serves as a first response vehicle. In sparsely populated regions that do not have their own fire or rescue service infrastructure, help can be dispatched immediately in the event of traffic accidents or medical emergencies, for example. The project vehicle is equipped for weeks of self-sufficient use, far away from civilization, and has a range of more than 2000 kilometers.

The project route roughly follows the course of the Pan-American Highway. On its approximately two-year journey from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, GFFG concentrates on training measures for firefighting safety. They are actively networking between fire departments in donor countries and countries in need in order to initiate equipment aid and improve the desperate situation of the highly motivated but often completely inadequately equipped fire departments in the countries along the project route. In addition, the GFFG will propagate the system of volunteer fire departments based on the German model and actively encourage the conversion of old civilian or military vehicles into improvised fire fighting vehicles. The initiators also want to promote international firefighting comradeship and peaceful cooperation between peoples. The GFFG is committed to the principles of the United Nations and acts in a politically neutral and independent manner.

Drinking water treatment in a four-wheel drive expedition vehicle 

The route planned for the fire department aid project leads through areas where the public water supply is problematic or where there is simply no water supply. It is therefore important for the implementation of the project that the expedition vehicle is as self-sufficient as possible in terms of its own water and power supply. At the same time, the available space on board must be used as efficiently as possible, as only a limited drinking water volume of 300 liters can be carried.

When converting the project vehicle, the aim was to design a system that enables the use of various fresh water sources. Space-saving installation, reliable and energy-efficient sterilization of the water and the ability to dispense the drinking water to the outside were the priority requirements. In the PURION 1000 from UV Concept, Jürgen Sprengel and Harald Schillegger found a high-performance UV water disinfection system that met their requirements. The system ensures the drinking water supply for 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 have made do by only consuming mineral water. During stays in South East Asia (Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia), they fell seriously ill despite all precautionary measures and required medical treatment. The cause of the infections was contaminated water, which is used to wash dishes in many local restaurants.

On some expeditions through the Australian deserts, the difficult water logistics posed a particular challenge. At the time, the GFFG expedition team had no way of treating water in the rented off-road vehicles, for example to use the old cattle wells along the Canning Stock Route. They were therefore forced to carry large quantities of drinking water in addition to the large fuel reserves. Even back then, Jürgen Sprengel and Harald Schillegger were already asking themselves how a drinking water disinfection system should be designed on board an off-road vehicle.
The duration of the planned project along the Panamericana makes a permanent water supply from bottles or canisters impossible. The main arguments against this are environmental aspects, in particular the avoidance of packaging waste, availability and the high costs. In addition to clean drinking water for self-supply and distribution to outsiders, water is also required for daily personal hygiene and washing clothes - and this is needed 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 not just for the project team itself, but also for other emergency services if necessary thanks to the high performance of the UV system, as drinking water can be generated from surface water at any time.

The installation 

A specialist company was engaged to install the UV system, according to which the implementation of the UV filter into the existing system was uncomplicated. This meant that the compact UV disinfection system could be integrated perfectly 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 a pull-out "filter shelf" for easy maintenance. The water is either fed into the drinking water filter system from the local pressurized water network or drawn in from a well or surface water using 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 means that water that is not free of suspended solids can also be fed in if necessary. The water then flows through the heart of the filter system, a PURION 1000 UV filter. There is a small water outlet on the side behind it. This is used to drain the water until the operating temperature of the UV lamp is reached. The quality of the filtered water can also be checked here, at least roughly, using 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. The pre-filtered water is kept fresh in the drinking water tank with the help of silver nets. A carbon filter is located behind the pressure equalization vessel in the main drinking water distributor. There is a separate tap in the kitchen unit just for drinking water. This is protected again by a final filter (ceramic element with a passage size of 0.1 μm) to prevent recontamination of the drinking water pipe. A special feature of the project vehicle is that water can also be pumped from the drinking water supply tank into the extinguishing water supply tank via a transfer pump to supply a water mist extinguishing system. The highly sensitive water mist extinguishing system only works properly with reliably filtered water. This comparatively high outlay 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 fundamental importance for the health of the project team and therefore 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 discussions with WM Aquatec and Dr. Wipprich, the Managing Director of WM Aquatec, during the planning of the drinking water filter system. PURION GmbH.

The GFFG team would choose a UV Concept product again at any time. The excellent advice, coupled with the technology and market leadership in the field of mobile UV drinking water disinfection and, last but not least, the outstanding and high-quality engineering solutions, were more than convincing.