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Audrey Gruaz
Published on November 11, 2024 at 6:49 p.m.
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The mission of firefighters: to preserve human lives. But in Seine-et-Marne, some of them add a specialty to this doctrine: also saving that of animals.
“It is a recent specialty for which a lot of legislation still needs to be legislated,” underlines Bruno Maestracci, director of Sdis77, the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service of Seine-et-Marne, during the national meeting of firefighters specializing in animal riskswhich was held in a convention center at Disneyland Paris, on November 7 and 8, 2024.
150 animal firefighters
And yet, Seine-et-Marne is a leader in this area. Our department is one of the first to have acquired this specialty. “Today we have 150 animal firefighters throughout the department,” indicates Céline Deleuze, chief warrant officer and departmental technical advisor on the subject.
It is to her that we owe this specialty in Seine-et-Marne, and for 28 years now, she has continued to increase the number of firefighters trained in our department… But also to the ‘outside. Hence this meeting at Disney where many emergency services came to get information in order to ultimately develop their specialty.
During the convention, firefighters notably carried out demonstrations. Here, the rescue of a horse… made of wood but weighing the weight of a living animal. ©Sdis 77
“An animal firefighter is above all a firefighter,” comments Céline Deleuze.
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An animal has its own language. You have to learn how to approach it, whether on a farm or in a private home, or even in the great outdoors.
Céline Deleuze
And it’s not the latest intervention that will make her lie. At the beginning of October 2024, while intense rain fall on the Seine-et-Marne and that the Morin overflows in the streets of Coulommiers and Crécy-la-Chapelle, it is the know-how of these specialized firefighters which enabled the rescue of around a hundred animals. “We sheltered sheep, ponies, horses and donkeys. The owners had anticipated the flood but not that it would be so strong. We had to go find the animals that had their feet in the water to bring them to safety,” she recalls.
In Saint-Germain-sur-Morin, they did it again to save around forty horses who “had water up to their chests”.
These are obviously exceptional rescues, which get people talking and shed light on this specialty, but for all that, these are not the majority of interventions. Some are less spectacular but just as essential for wildlife. “We do a lot of rescues of horses, cows and sheep that have fallen into a hollow, a bridge that gives way in the forest, etc. », continues Céline Deleuze who admits to having fewer interventions for snakes for example. “We did a lot of teaching to identify a snake that is resting in the sun on the terrace… and will leave on its own.”
Among the frequent interventions of animal firefighters: extracting a horse stuck in a hole, like here in 2022 in Croissy-Beaubourg. ©SDIS77
“There is an urgent need to legislate”
However, some animals are not their responsibility : a cat stuck in a tree will come down on its own and will not require the movement of a team of firefighters. Likewise, wildlife such as wild boars or foxes is not their responsibility. When they are injured, they are intended to be euthanized and “that is not our mission”, argues Bruno Maestracci.
For him, there is also an urgency to harmonize practicesmeans, materials and training across France, and to “legislate for what types of animals we must intervene”. Each department is also free to implement this specialty or not. There is also no Operational Doctrine Guide for animal rescue.
Beyond the emotional aspect felt by the owners of animals saved thanks to the intervention of the emergency services, improving their care also makes it possible to “preserve production tools”.
When we send our firefighters to save horses from a flooded equestrian center or pigs from a burning building, it is also a business and jobs that we are preserving.
Bruno Maestracci
Veterinarians complete the workforce
Sometimes, the interventions are complex, and the victim’s state of health requires the presence of a doctor… as for humans in fact. In this case, the firefighters call on veterinarians, volunteer firefighters. This is the case of Pierrick Dezaux, a volunteer for 10 years. “The veterinarian comes in addition, he brings expertise to the treatment and care that must be provided,” comments Céline Deleuze.
What pushed this veterinarian, well established in his practice in southern Seine-et-Marne, to join the volunteer firefighters? “I learned that the firefighters were looking for veterinarians to become volunteers. My father was a firefighter. I think it helped me join them. The activity is different at each guard, we discover another environment and I wanted to be of service to others,” he tells us.
Health veterinarian in the dog technical team, Pierrick Dezaux participated with Sdis 77 in missions in Türkiye after the 2023 earthquake. For around ten days, he notably took care of the dogs responsible for finding victims in the rubble. “A commitment for which we need much more recognition,” complains the director of Sdis 77, who points out that to go to the other side of the world, firefighters take their vacation time. “We expect a real status from the professional volunteer firefighter,” he concludes.
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