Review of the EU MODEX Ireland

Two EUCPTs with two embedded TASTs, together with 27 experts from different European countries, participated in this EU MODEX, funded by the European Commission and conducted from 23 to 29 March in Ireland.

The exercise scenario was an advisory mission assessing Ireland's wildfire and forest fire preparedness, host nation support frameworks, and integration of aerial firefighting resources. This mission involved evaluating current policies, operational capabilities, available resources, and inter-agency coordination mechanisms to identify gaps and improvement areas and provide actionable recommendations.✍ 👨‍🚒 💻 

The first day was mainly meetings at a strategic and operational level, focusing on Host Nation Support, Aerial Coordination, and Forestry Management. On Wednesday the teams could visit a national wildfire exercise in the Wicklow Mountains where the Fire Service was supported by seven other Fire Services. Aidan Dempsey, Chief Fire Officer of Wicklow County Council: “The Air Corps, the National Park and Wildlife Services, the Garda (Irish Police), the Irish Coast Guard, private helicopter operators, Civil Defence, mountain rescue, six local authorities and ten agencies participated.” They demonstrated a very well-coordinated response to the wildfire. Many aspects of the mission and possible European support were observed and discussed. The findings were drafted in two separate reports, which were presented to the Irish government in Dublin on Friday.

Project Director Dr Bogdan Pop stated: “The exercise was an excellent opportunity for the participants and for the Irish colleagues to exercise together and to learn from each other”. 

More than 30 people from exercise control and staff and National Liaison Officers were active in managing the exercise. What made this exercise special was, that there were no role-players, all meeting partners for the teams were in their professional function, from Government, agencies and response organisations, and all were doing their daily business. 👏

Josef H. Riener, Project Manager of this MODEX: “With the strong support from our Irish partners and the good contributions of the consortium members we conducted this advisory mission exercise. This setup is very important because it focuses on training the management level of future members of European Civil Protection Teams”. 

For the participants and the consortium, led by Departamentul pentru Situații de Urgență it was a challenging week, but the learning for all participants was very good and an excellent preparation for future deployments in the framework of the European Civil Protection Mechanism. 

The second exercise of Lot 4 will be held in Tenerife in September. Four members of the Cabildo de Tenerife (the government of the island responsible for Civil Protection) participated as observers to increase their knowledge for the upcoming exercise.