Cold Conditions Module
Recent events have unsurprisingly shown that natural disasters are characteristically unpredictable. This fact requires a high level of professionalism and preparedness from rescue personnel to respond to disasters in the most professional manner in order to rescue human lives as well as to limit insecurity and destruction of the affected population. The Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan earthquakes are prime examples of natural catastrophes taking place in a cold environment and therefore a climate-factor must be an integral part of any rescue operation preparedness in terms of both training and equipment. There will always be, by the law of nature, the need for rescue operations taking place in the very cold, sub-zero, temperatures and environment.
In Pakistan, the frigid temperatures in the mountains were an additional challenge to the rescue effort. As for the Kyrgyzstan earthquake; it happened during the winter months and cold temperatures were a challenging factor for rescuers. Fortunate this particular incident was not a major catastrophe as the rescue effort would have been hampered by the frigid temperatures. Any disaster that occurs in a mountainous region or in cold temperatures, whether during winter months or in the high north or extreme south, poses an added difficulty for rescuers and multiplies complexity of the rescue operation. In many recent Rapid Response Missions, rescuers have faced the challenge of dealing with extreme variances in temperatures; night time temperatures can drop down below zero while day time temperatures can reach more that 35 degrees Celsius. This extreme variance means significantly changing operating rescue environment for rescuers. It, among other things, causes sleep deprivation for rescue workers, for example and therefore their capability and effectiveness for USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) actions may be radically decreased.
Many EU rescue teams have no experience in operating in extreme weather conditions, particularly in sub zero temperatures. Due to Finland's geographical location and extreme climate conditions, especially in the northern part of Finland and Lapland, Finnish rescue teams have been compelled to develop expertise in carrying out rescue operation in cold temperature and snowy conditions.
For this reason the Finnish rescue professionals have the experience, capabilities and the willingness to share this expertise. The main international expertise of Finnish rescue teams is derived from USAR operations. This project proposal gives a great opportunity to utilise already existing and developed winter and cold temperature expertise and knowhow in Finland and to link it to existing needs of USAR operations all over the world.
Therefore, reasons for creating a new Cold Conditions-Module are both obvious and abundant. One additional and newly discovered factor is climate change. There is a need for new types of training, preparedness and equipment as climate change is creating extreme weather conditions. Also the recent initiative to exploit the Arctic for its oil and gas reserves must be taken into account in rescue planning in an extreme weather conditions. The Arctic is vulnerable territory with unpredictable weather; the expansion of the energy industry heightens the risks of disasters.
Finland has initiated the development of a training programme for cold weather rescues in order to respond to these risks and challenges and the Crisis Management Centre (CMC) Finland in conjunction with the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) is proposing to design, test and build a new training module which can significantly enhance EU's and other rescue training providers' capability and preparedness in working and operating in cold winter conditions and environment.
The very objective of this proposal is to create new training module to prepare rescue workers for cold weather operations. The module will be entitled “Cold Conditions-Module” and the purpose is to train rescue personnel to operate in cold conditions with properly designed and tested equipment.
A training course for the “Cold Conditions-Module” will be developed and established in order to have a standardised Cold Conditions- training module. The objective of the training course is to assist other EU Civil Protection Mechanism teams to enhance their capabilities in operating in cold conditions, to foster close cooperation with all EU Mechanism teams and share the experiences of the Finnish teams in cold condition rescue operations.
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