Wind turbine above “burned down in a controlled manner”: damage of 500,000 euros

Firefighters actually want to put out fires during operations. With wind turbines up to 100 meters high, however, you can only let the top technology burn down in a controlled manner, say experts - as with Demmin.

Demmin - A fire in a wind turbine in a wind farm near the municipality of Sarow (Mecklenburg Lake District) near Demmin resulted in damage of around 500,000 euros. As a police spokesman said on Tuesday, the machine house in the uppermost part of the wind turbine caught fire in strong winds. Because of the height of around 100 meters, the fire fighters were only able to "let the fire burn down in a controlled manner" late on Monday evening, as the district brigade leader Enrico Kollhof explained.

"The greatest risk is always falling debris," said Kollhof on Tuesday. The fire brigades therefore demand that such high wind turbines are always equipped with automatic fire detection and fire fighting systems. It is unclear whether this was the case in the case of the wind farm near Sarow, which consists of twelve wind turbines. Such fires are more dangerous in summer, said Kollhof, because then dry grain fields or meadows could also catch fire.

The fire brigades blocked the entrances to the wind farm. The machine house burned out completely, parts of the cladding fell to the ground. The mast and the propeller blades remained largely undamaged. The police stated that the cause of the fire was a technical defect in the engine house, where the rotation of the propellers is converted into electricity.

It was not the first fire in the wind farm, where the other eleven wind turbines are currently still in operation. A nacelle burned out in 2015, when lightning is said to have struck there. According to the security authorities and fire departments, such fires in the upper part of the wind turbines are rather rare.

Translation into English via google translate