On February 12 this year, Wołów police officers received information from officers of the District Police Headquarters in Góra that one resident of Góra County had notified them about unexploded ordnance found in a forest complex in the Wińsko Municipality. The officers, together with forest rangers and the reporting person, went to the site and secured the indicated area.

– After being notified by the police, bomb-disposal specialists from the 4th Głogów Engineer Battalion, while checking the nearby forest, determined that two locations contained, among other things, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, fuses and aircraft bombs. During the 12 days of the bomb-disposal specialists’ operation, Wołów police officers secured the indicated area around the clock so that bystanders would not be exposed to danger – reports Junior Asp. Janusz Rosa, acting press officer of the District Police Headquarters in Wołów.

He adds:

Bomb-disposal specialists from the Głogów unit, supported by a bomb-disposal patrol from the 23rd Artillery Regiment in Bolesławiec, located and secured a total of nearly 800 anti-tank mines, more than 300 anti-personnel mines, more than 3,500 fuses, 32 100-kilogram aircraft bombs and 37 detonators. Two of the bombs found, as they could not be transported, were detonated on site by soldiers.

Officers:

Our forests and soil contain many reminders of times gone by. Due to corrosion, such ordnance can explode from even a slight jolt. We now urge particular caution, as in spring more and more people will choose to spend time walking in the forest. If we notice a dangerous find, it should be clearly marked, then secured against access by third parties, and the information should be immediately passed on to the appropriate services – a bomb-disposal patrol or the Police.

They add:

We also remind you that the illegal search for historical artefacts is punishable, because under Article 109c of the Act on the Protection and Care of Historical Monuments, “Anyone who, without a permit or contrary to the conditions of a permit, searches for hidden historical monuments, including through the use of any kind of electronic and technical devices or diving equipment, is liable to a fine, restriction of liberty or imprisonment for up to 2 years.”