As in any other medical discipline, developments in disaster medicine have occurred. A model for medical disaster management is briefly discussed and then applied retrospectively to the Enschede fireworks disaster (2000). Differences between the theoretical model and the actual situation are shown with respect to the number of casualties, the average severity of injury sustained, the medical rescue capacity, the medical transport capacity and hospital treatment capacity. It was concluded that the proposed model for the management of disasters with traumatically injured victims worked adequately.