Fire Engines Photos

Fire Engine Photos

 No: 4480   Contributor: Konrad Nowak   Year: 2006   Manufacturer: Ford   Country: Poland

305[W]90 &SLOp Ford Focus Warsaw Poland

305[W]90 – SLOp – Ford Focus – Warsaw, Poland

Description:

This 2003 Ford Focus is used by the officers of State Fire Service Fire and Rescue Unit 5 (the unit commander and his deputy), for administrational and operational purposes. All of Warsaw s 17 fire stations have received a Ford Focus kombi by now. Together with those used by HQ, there are 19 of them.

Ford has been supplying all officer ;s cars (Focus, Mondeo), minibuses (Transit) and smaller specialist vehicles (Transit, Transit Connect) to Warsaw for the last few years. The Fire and Rescue Unit of the Main Fire Service College in Warsaw also uses a Ford ; in this case, it is a 1993 Explorer.

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The predecessor of the State Fire Service Fire and Rescue Unit 5, the Unit 5 of the WSO (Warsaw Fire Brigade) was established in 1878, in a period when Poland did not exist as a state and Warsaw was the second largest city of Russia, for it was the Russian occupation zone where it ended up after the Partitions of Poland. The 19th Century units were easy to tell apart on the street, thanks to assigning horses of specific colours to each station. In addition, green banners were installed on the hand pumps and carts of Unit 5. Today, black and olive green are the official colours of the station and all its equipment is marked with them. Following the Second World War, the Warsaw Fire Brigade was constantly expanding its rescue capabilities and the Water Rescue Group was established in 1969. Station 5 was its home ever since.

The stations vehicles are as follows:

305-21: GBAt 2/34 Renault Midlum (rescue pump);
305-22: GBA 2,5/30 Renault Midlum (pump/water tender);
305-25: GCBA 5/32 MAN (heavy pump/tanker);
305-26: GCBA 8,2/32 Tatra T815 (heavy tanker - soon to be replaced);
305-35: GCPr-3000 Jelcz 315M (heavy dry powder tender);
305-51: SD-30 Iveco Magirus (30m/100 ft. turntable ladder);
305-71: SRw MAN (water rescue/diving unit);
305-73: SRw Jelcz (boat transport/diving unit);
305-81: SKw Star 200 (auxiliary truck);
305-90: SLOp Ford Focus (unit commander;s car);
305-91: SLRr Ford Transit (minibus);

The station also houses a few boats and trailers. The unit's rescue cutter is moored at the adjacent Praga Port.

To do their job effectively within their staff limitations, the crew of JRG-5 came up with their own dispatch procedures for specific incidents, for instance:

Traffic accident: 305-21 (rescue pump), 305-22 (pump/water tender)
Fire: 305-22 (pump/water tender), 305-25 (pump/tanker) and either 305-51 (turntable ladder) or 305-26 (the heavy Tatra tanker).

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The above description was written in close co-operation with Mateusz Czajkowski.