Czech Republic - Prevention & preparedness
Vademecum - Civil Protection
Exercises
The planning process starts by preparing the annual training plan (national, regional and local). The preparation of annual and monthly exercise plans follows. Each fire station and each regional Fire and Rescue Brigade have their own exercise plans which are coordinated at national level to ensure that other services (regional Medical Rescue Services, the police, the army, ministries and other bodies of the Integrated Rescue System etc.) are incorporated into these plans.
Exercise facilities include, for instance:
- Any possible parts of real environment
- Any possible real facilities (buildings, factories, collapsed structures, streets, roads, motorways, rivers etc)
- Local training facilities within regional Fire and Rescue Brigades
- Military training facilities
- Training facilities of other bodies of the Integrated Rescue System.
Guidelines for exercise planning: The guidelines are found in the Directive of the General Director of the Fire and Rescue Service No. 7/2009 on the recommended procedures for preparing and performing exercises. Read more about the Directive.
Early warning systems
Early warning systems towards professionals:- ECURIE (Radiological/Nuclear)
- RAS BICHAT
- MIC
- EADRCC
- IAEA.
are integrated within the civil protection system through the Operational and Informational Centre of the DG Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic.
Early warning systems towards the population: An autonomous system of warning and notification is built as a modular technically open system enabling continuous completing and extending , both from the point of view of the number of siren stations and also from the point of view of using information provided by them.
The system consists of:
- Controlling workplace
- Electronic sirens with a controlling unit
- Appliance for transmitting radio signal to control sirens and verbal information transfer.
A decision made by the Minister of the Interior of the Czech Republic introduced one single warning signal in the area of the Czech Republic. The signal was launched on 1 November 2001 and is called "General Warning".
The signal is sent by a fluctuating tone for 140 seconds. The signal may be sent three times in a row in three-minute long intervals. It will be sent in case of danger to life and health due to: a natural disaster (earthquake, big earth slides), accidents with the escape of dangerous materials into the environment (accidents in chemical plants, in storage of chemicals or during traffic accidents, accidents in nuclear energetic facilities or other accidents with radioactive fallout into the environment), or other extraordinary situations of larger extent (ecological accidents, large oil spills), flood waves and inundations.
The acoustic tone of the digital siren will be followed by emergency information (of national, regional, and local applicability) from the mass media to inhabitants on the imminent or incurred emergency.
Operative information is exchanged via walkie – talkies, specialized electronic tools for data exchange on the internet and video conferences.