UK emergency services trial unmanned firefighting system
Above: The DOK-ING MVF 5 has recently been displayed at the Shrivenham CBRNe conference and is now carrying out a series of demonstrations and trials for the UK’s emergency services.
The first outing for MVF 5 was as the base for a CBRNe reconnaissance concept demonstrator at the VXIII International CBRN conference recently held at Shrivenham.
The MVF 5 has been developed by DOK-ING, the Croatian Robotic Vehicle company. The company also produces humanitarian mine clearance, combat and civil engineering and confined space digging vehicles that deal with violent and dangerous incidents in critical national infrastructure, underground, oil, explosive and similar facilities. With its size, power and attached 'ripper gripper' MVF 5 is able to deal with hazmat events where the deployment of fire and rescue service personnel close to the incident is too dangerous to contemplate.
The 12 ton tracked MVF 5 features a remote control system that can be managed from a small hand held box similar to a game controller or a fully equipped command centre up to 1500m line of sight away from the fire or other event. Carrying 2000l of water and 500l of foam MVF 5 can be deployed into the heart of a fire or other hazardous incident and fight the fire, cool hazardous devices such as gas cylinders, decontaminate items needing this, rip open closed containers allowing access or pull things such as vehicles or gas cylinders from the scene.
The MVF5 will be controlled by DOK-ING's UK representative Lutra Associates Limited and based at Tactical HazMat Ltd in Evesham. The unit will be available for demonstrations and trials mainly at Tactical HazMat’s facility but will also be taking part in centralised demonstrations. In addition the unit will be available to be leased and deployed by fire services should the need arise.
Tim Otter, Lutra's Chief Executive, commented: “At this early stage in MVF 5’s development only a few units have been produced so it is a strong sign of the importance of the UK market that the prototype MVF 5 is making its first overseas deployment in a demonstration role here. Its other deployments have been to fight fires and deal with other issues in blazing ammunition and fuel depots and deal with the impacted debris at major vehicle and train crashes where it has been too dangerous to deploy fire fighters. Where these sorts of hazards and issues exist everyone in the fire departments have rapidly come to appreciate the capability these machines have to offer in protecting the population and containing damage and doing so with reduced risk to fire and rescue personnel."
Kevin Miller, the Chief Executive of Tactical HazMat commented: "We will have an initial training period with teachers from DOK-ING then once trained and certified as competent instructors ourselves we will be able to run demonstrations and courses for the UK's fire services whether public, private or military. The ability in this initial period to deploy the unit as a leased vehicle to authorities that find they have a need for the capability MVF 5 brings is a challenge we look forward to helping our colleagues in the fire and rescue services with. We see this as a natural extension of our Hazmat Activities."
