Overview
- An internal letter from Landesbranddirektor Karsten Homrighausen, confirmed by a department spokesman, details 51,259 deployments averaging 1.15 per minute.
- Persistent ice produced repeated exceptional-state declarations and a single-day high of 2,270 emergency responses on Friday.
- In the final week of the month, crews responded to 2,955 slip-and-fall incidents, roughly double the typical weekly volume of about 1,400.
- With ambulances unavailable at peak times, dispatch temporarily authorized patient transports using fire support vehicles that lack standard medical equipment.
- An early-January power outage in southwest Berlin following suspected arson left about 100,000 residents and 2,200 businesses without electricity for up to five days, adding to the workload.