B 127 - 2027

Report

On Saturday, June 28, 2026, a forest fire broke out in the Rotenfels Nature Reserve in Traisen, in the Bad Kreuznach district. Since the area is littered with unexploded ordnance from World War II, firefighting efforts proved difficult from the start, and the fire spread to an area of nearly three hectares in a very short time.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, the Rhineland-Palatinate State Office for Fire and Disaster Protection (LfBK) issued a large-scale request for regional assistance from the surrounding counties and independent cities. Among other things, a response team from the Winnweiler municipal association was also requested. Shortly thereafter, seven vehicles from the Steinbach, Sippersfeld, Imsbach, and Winnweiler units were dispatched to the staging area in Rüdesheim, including three tanker fire trucks and the swap body truck with the water supply roll-off container.

Shortly after arriving at the staging area, the vehicles were deployed to the actual scene of the incident and assigned to Sector 3. The Winnweiler Fire Department’s ELW 1 was deployed to provide command support to the sector commander, while the tanker trucks were used to supply water and fight the fire. The WLF with the AB water was subsequently deployed in the area of the sprinkler ring line. This was used to spray a forested area from a safe distance in order to contain the spread of the fire there.

On Sunday evening, a team set out for Traisen to relieve the personnel on site. In addition to the units already deployed, personnel from the Falkenstein and Gonbach fire departments subsequently provided support. On Monday morning, the Winnweiler Municipal Association fire department personnel were rotated internally once again to provide another 12 hours of support on site. That evening, all vehicles from the Winnweiler Municipal Association were able to begin their journey home together.

As of now (July 1, 2026), the fire in the forest area near Rotenfels is under control; however, extensive mop-up operations are required, which are being carried out with the help of firefighting robots, among other measures.