Fire Engines Photos

This standard specification 4X4 water tender served for 33 years, which is not atypical for a German volunteer fire company. Welzheim - with a population of 11,200 - has 56 operational on call unpaid volunteers, equipped with a rescue pump, a pump water tender, a TTL, a rescue truck, a logistics crew cab unit, a multi purpose van, a command van and a personnel carrier. They responded to 65 alarms in 2020.

Added by Rob Johnson on 09 April 2021.

65! With all that kit! good gracious, in the uk they would probably get 1 pump at best!

Added by Oliver Todd on 11 April 2021.

Oliver - it is actually pretty typical in Germany, going back all the way to the days of manual and horse drawn equipment, when most towns and villages were on their own if and when a fire broke out. They have a long tradition of volunteer fire brigades, starting in most cases well over a hundred years ago, often with generations of volunteers from the same and related families. As a result, Germany still has more than 20, 000 volunteer fire companies - with very close to a million members! Because they have no payroll expense, they can afford much more comprehensive equipment and appliances than a comparable paid organization, but of course their appliances get comparatively little use.

Two hundred large towns and cities do have paid full time firefighters, but in all cases they are supported by numerous volunteer fire stations too. Similar systems are to be found in Austria and to a lesser extent also in Poland, France, Spain and many other countries including North, South and Central America. For example, France has about the same population as the UK and both countries have around 40, 000 full time paid firefighters, but the UK has only 19, 000 paid on call "retained" personnel while France has 194, 000 unpaid volunteers.

Added by Rob Johnson on 13 April 2021.

The province of Catalonia in Spain has a requirement that every community with a total population of over 5,000 must have a fire station with the necessary appliances and numbers of properly trained volunteers. A quick study of the provincial fire service's latest annual report showed some big variations in how busy these fire stations were. Believe it or not, the least busy had only six - yes SIX - runs!

Added by Rob Johnson on 14 April 2021.

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