The Supetar Volunteer Fire Department is located in the village of Supetar, and is affiliated with the Split-Dalmatia County Fire Department and forms the backbone of firefighting on the island of Brač.

The Supetar Volunteer Fire Department has 154 members, of which 60 are operational, i.e. they have certificates of competence and health certificates. The Supetar Volunteer Fire Department employs 17 professional firefighters, who perform fire duty duties in 4 shifts of 3 firefighters each, throughout the year from 0 to 24 hours.

They are located in a modern fire station that has solved the problems of accommodating the equipment, techniques and vehicles of the Supetar firefighters and enabled the quality fulfillment of all the goals and tasks of the Society, not only in terms of the safety and preventive aspect of firefighting activities, but also in terms of professional training and exercises, all with the aim of achieving firefighting excellence and in the broader social context of the work of firefighters in the island community.

According to the prevention plans, the plan is to continue investing in fire prevention monitoring systems and the arrangement of fire routes, as well as improving the forecast of meteorological danger from forest fires and the system for warning the local population and domestic and foreign tourists about the danger of vegetation fires, but what is needed is constant education of firefighters from the island of Brač, especially in new methods and technologies for extinguishing fires.

The arrival of an increasing number of tourists to the island of Brač (in the report for 2023), the most passengers were transported on the ferry line Supetar - Split and vice versa (2,066,540), and vehicles were transported on the ferry line Split - Supetar and vice versa (approx. 500,000. Due to incentives the number of electric vehicles (cars, mopeds, bicycles and scooters) is growing, and firefighters do not know how and in what way to deal with them in the event of a fire.

In Croatia, there are currently no expert materials that would provide insight into this type of problem, and in the near future an increase in the number of electric cars is expected, and therefore the possible fires that can occur on them. In addition to the dangers described above, these vehicles can pose additional challenges for the fire service. Many of these vehicles have operational features that fire service personnel are currently not familiar with.

What challenges us are what innovative methods to extinguish electric car fires when they catch fire? Electric cars need a large amount of water or some other means to extinguish the battery/vehicle once it starts burning.

Given the decarbonization goals, the number of electric vehicles will grow in the coming years, and technology will continue to develop, batteries will have increasing capacity, and charging stations will be more and more.

There is currently very limited experience with innovative methods of extinguishing electric cars, so all experience and information are certainly valuable and should be supplemented until new knowledge and new experiences are gained in this area.

Firebrigade - Supetar

Supetar, Brač, Croatia