Doubly ready for action

600 full-time staff at five stations, 1,200 operational personnel in 24 volunteer fire brigade divisions. The Stuttgart fire brigade is by far the largest in all of Baden-Württemberg. And it keeps on growing: since 2022 Stuttgart's fire directorate has been re-equipping. For the so-called special deployment situations in the field. And that is Unimog territory.

These include fire extinguishing and assistance operations in fields and forests, but also in the Württemberg vineyards that rise steeply above the eastern districts. The volunteer fire brigade’s units are already equipped for this with two TLF-W (tank fire-fighting vehicles for forest fire-fighting and flood response) and an all-wheel-drive incident command vehicle (ELW). Two command and reconnaissance vehicles specifically tailored for off-road terrain will follow in 2024.

But flames are best fought in a pack. And that is only complete with the two Unimog: a compact RW-K rescue vehicle based on the Unimog U 323, just 2,200 mm wide, and an RW-HG highly off-road-capable rescue vehicle based on the Unimog U 5023.

The two new additions to the Stuttgart fleet, each with 231 hp (170 kW), were designed in collaboration with bodybuilder Schlingmann so that they can form an operational tactical unit together with the two existing tank fire-fighting vehicles – Unimog U 1250 L. According to the Stuttgart Fire Department, this is unique nationwide so far.

The narrow RW-K is stationed with the Uhlbach volunteer fire brigade, where the fire service often operates in the very narrow and steep path systems of garden plots and vineyards. By contrast, the RW-HG holds the line in Degerloch — an area south of the Neckar that, at least by Stuttgart-region standards, also has extensive woodland and significantly more severe weather incidents than the rest of the Stuttgart urban area.

The predecessors of the new Unimog are also Unimog — namely the U 1300 L series. The two old vehicles served the fire brigade faithfully. They were in service for more than 40 years. There is a simple reason why they are now being replaced: the new vehicle generation is, in the case of the RW-K, not only narrower but simply capable of much more.

The factory-fitted high heat protection on the two Unimog makes the fire brigade more resilient in operations, and the central tyre inflation system TireControl plus gives the crews greater control. In addition, the RW-HG offers improved manoeuvrability in waterlogged terrain and a fording capability of up to 1.2 m, giving emergency crews more scope in the other threatening element. After all, the highly off-road-capable Unimog must be able to follow the TLF-W unhindered even in flooding. And not necessarily only in Stuttgart, because in crisis situations the fire brigade sometimes provides assistance beyond state and national borders — from the Ahr Valley to Greece.

"Our vehicles are designed for 'normal' things. But we don't always have normal situations," says Christian Schwarze, fire director at the Stuttgart fire brigade. "But what, for example, could really happen in the vineyards?" some people asked. Then Christian Schwarze doesn't have to think long — there are plenty of emergencies he has experienced himself.

The inline skater with headphones in his ears who doesn't notice the vineyard tractor that is just powering over a row of vines. The tractor that tips over on the slope and rolls several times. The worker who gets caught in the harvester. "Actually, things like that don't happen," says Christian Schwarze. "But the fire brigade exists because there is such a thing as 'not actually'."

And this is exactly where the new rescue vehicles come into play: "The old Unimogs had firefighting capability but not the rescue capability required in so-called HLF (rescue pumper) operations," explains Christian Schwarze. This includes, for example, a vehicle-mounted winch, a hydraulic rescue platform for saving truck occupants, a chainsaw or integrated cut-off wheel technology. Because the RW-HG (high-mobility rescue vehicle) Unimog U 5023 is equipped with these, it can also serve as a "recovery vehicle" in a TLF-W (forest fire water tender truck) operation in the field.

Christian Schwarze is a veteran of the fire service. He has worked as a firefighter for a total of 43 years. Until 2022 Christian Schwarze chaired the Technical Committee of the German fire service. The Stuttgart fire brigade owes the technical alignment with international standards to him, for example in fighting forest fires.

And that is exactly where the Unimog proves its worth, says Christian Schwarze. “There have been operations out in the middle of the forest where colleagues asked us how we had been able to get there so quickly. ‘We just drove,’ we said then. They were stunned.” As far as the new rescue vehicles are concerned, there was no choice, the fire chief says: “We of course put it out to tender without bias. And there are many manufacturers who claim they can do what the Unimog can. But try to find a 15-ton vehicle with road-legal approval that can also go off-road — and through flooded streets.”

In the Europe-wide tenders for the vehicles, the Stuttgart fire brigade found no alternative to the Unimog.