Forest Machines Help Fight Wildfires

Ponsse’s firefighting equipment, installed in the load space of a PONSSE forwarder, has been engaged in real firefighting work in the Unites States and Finland. The equipment’s excellent terrain properties and effective extinguishing ability in difficult conditions have made a great impression on professionals.

Installed in forwarders is that it helps to reach locations that are inaccessible by other firefighting equipment.Increasing forest fires and their associated carbon dioxide emissions have serious consequences for climate change. The carbon dioxide emissions of forest fires are significant: the carbon stored in vegetation is released into the air, and the increased concentration of carbon dioxide is absorbed by oceans and vegetation. The increased carbon dioxide levels have global consequences, even though the combustion gases and particles mostly affect local air quality.

Wildfires usually happen far from roads, so it may be time-consuming or even impossible for fire trucks to reach them. Using forest machines to contain and extinguish fires saves time and effort compared to manual work done by firefighters.

At the end of 2020, Ponsse launched firefighting equipment that can be installed in the load space of a forwarder, and it has already been delivered to Chile, Brazil, Germany, Russia, the USA and Finland.

First US firefighting equipment goes to Miller Timber Services

The firefighting equipment has already seen action in the US, as Miller Timber. Services assisted the Idaho Department of Lands in stopping wildfires that were threatening the timber producing lands in Northern Idaho USA.

Lee Miller, CEO of Miller Timber Services

Ponsse's firefrighting equipment performed well in difficult conditions.

“Ponsse’s firefighting equipment performed well in heavy timber and difficult terrain. It can bring a lot of water to a area inaccessible by traditional wildfire equipment. The Ponsse firefighting equipment forwarder cabin provides protection from falling trees and snags, one of the leading cause of wild land firefighter deaths” says Lee Miller, CEO of Miller Timber Services.

“We used the firefighting equipment to hold a active burning fire lines and then to put out the fire along with mopping up hot spots. We have only had the equipment for a short time and fire managers are still learning how to utilize it but it is safe to say the product is a success and will change the way wild land fires are fought in the western US. When using forest machines fewer personnel are need on the ground lowering the exposer to injury or death”, says Miller.

True Community Spirit in Fighting

The Kalajoki Forest Fires Professional emergency service personnel from all over Finland and hundreds of volunteers went to work when a record-breaking wildfire broke out between July and August around the village of Rautio in Kalajoki in Finland. In total, the fire claimed 227 hectares of forest. The fire was Finland’s second worst this decade – only the Muhos forest fire of 2020 was bigger.

The Kalajoki fire took more than two weeks to put out. About one hundred emergency service personnel from nearly every fire service in Finland attended. The firefighting also included a large number of volunteers, such as local entrepreneurs with their tractors, forest machines and excavators.

Putting out the Kalajoki fire was a true feat of cooperation of all of Finland’s emergency service personnel.

“Things went smoothly because we all operate according to the same principles, and professionals are capable of using the equipment of any unit. For example, a truck coming to Kalajoki could be from Kittilä and driven by someone from Kotka, but everyone worked together without a hitch. We sent some 30 people to fight the fire over the course of a week,” says Tuomo Halmeslahti, chief of the Southern Savonia regional rescue services.

Ponsse firefighting equipment helped cover large areas of Kalajoki

The Southern Savonia regional rescue services responded to the Kalajoki fire as soon as the request for assistance was received.

“We had prepared for the summer’s wildfires in spring by installing firefighting equipments at Vocational College’s training forwarders. This allowed us to respond immediately once we had arranged transport,” says Halmeslahti.

“Although it must be said that if the forwarder has the connections ready, it only takes half an hour to install the firefighting equipment in the load space,” he adds.

According to Halmeslahti, the trained assistance response team was underway in two hours.

“Rescue operations are always handled by trained personnel; we talk to the forest machine by two-way radio and analyse together where it is safe and useful to go,” he says.

Seppo Kinnunen from Ponsse is part of the Southern Savonia rescue services response unit, and he participated in the firefighting in Kalajoki.

“The off-road capability of the forest machine load space firefighting equipment is absolutely its best feature. Forest machines can usually go where no others can,” says Kinnunen.

“It saves a lot of strength when we don’t have to lay out fire hoses by hand all across the site. The forest machine’s cabin is also quite safe from things like burned-up tree trunks, which were falling here and there in Kalajoki,” says Kinnunen, who works at Ponsse as a technical specialist.

The Kalajoki wildfire was the third fire where Kinnunen had taken the PONSSE Firefighting equipment.

“I have previously participated in fighting a wildfire in Hartola and a bog fire in Taipalsaari, which was actually in The PONSSE Firefighting equipment has a 10 m³ water tank that can be filled with its own pump from a natural water source or the tank of a fire truck.

“The local entrepreneur in Kalajoki helped us top up quickly. They had 28 m3 sludge tanks that could refill the firefighting equipment two or three times,” says Kinnunen.

High performance in tough terrain

Kinnunen agrees with Tuomo Halmeslahti in attesting to the capability of the firefighting equipment. The off-road capability is a strong point.

“The terrain in Kalajoki featured stony ground that was impossible for any quad bike or other machine to negotiate. The capability to travel and firefight in extreme terrain is in a class of its own, with the water cannon reaching beyond 40 metres and covering 360 degrees. It can put out a lot of fire in one go.”

The product is already excellent, according to Halmeslahti, but further development is underway. Different water softeners and chemicals have been tested recently for even better fire containment and extinguishing performance in future.

According to chief Halmeslahti, it is difficult to say whether the future will bring more wildfires to Finland, but a warmer climate is certainly not something that will reduce them. He strongly recommends that other rescue service units acquire firefighting tanks.

“We can distribute our equipment and make rescue services capable of meeting firefighting challenges nationwide,” says Halmeslahti.

“We should work with our area’s forest machine contractors and transport companies, as we will need trailers to transport forest machines to fires.”

Halmeslahti praises the collaboration with schools. Educational institutions park their machines for the summer, the wildfire season, because students are on holiday. Responding to a fire is a race against time. “Kalajoki is more than 300 kilometres from Mikkeli. If similar equipment was closer, the firefighting could have started several hours earlier. We may buy our own carriage, as having our own transport equipment would save us even more time,” says Halmeslahti.