Valuable experience has been learned after 12 firefighters from the fire and rescue service in Geneva helped their colleagues in southwestern France to fight a gigantic forest fire.
The firefighters worked alongside 2'000 French colleagues to tackle the Landiras fire in the winegrowing area of Gironde near Bordeaux last week.
21,000 hectares of forest were on fire, with a perimeter of 65 kilometres, the worst fire seen in France for 40 years.
The Genevan firefighters, all of whom are volunteers and made the trip in their own time, took several fire engines with them.
The team supported French crews by controlling the spread of the fire to the edge of the forest.
Having returned to Geneva, they say that they learned valuable lessons in how to tackle a large-scale forest fire, knowledge that could, unfortunately, prove valuable in the future in Switzerland.
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