Fire Engines Photos

This water tender was acquired in 2007. With a 295 HP engine and a 4X4 chassis, it has a 2000 LPM rated pump and a 2400 litre water tank. The crew cab accommodates nine. It is accompanied at the principal fire station by a rescue pump, another water tender, a 4000 litre tanker, a 23/12 TTK, a Bronto Skylift, two officer's staff cars, a command van, two personnel carriers, a water rescue unit, two WLF pod carriers, a hazmat truck, a general purpose truck, two trailed rescue boats and a general purpose boat. The town has four additional smaller fire stations with another eight pumps and various special purpose trucks.

The fleet is quite varied, including MAN, Mercedes and Scania trucks as well as these Iveco-Magirus units.

Added by Rob Johnson on 03 October 2021.

Amazing, if I have got the right Kehl population is only 35,000!

Added by CraigW on 05 October 2021.

Yes Craig, that's right. Kehl is yet another quite typical example of how fire protection is organized, funded, equipped and staffed in Germany. These volunteer fire companies go back to the days of horse drawn (or even manually dragged) equipment, when roads were poor - even impassable in Winter - and every village had to have enough volunteers and appliances to deal with any fire incident on their own. As time passed, they have continued to flourish, often with generations of volunteers from the same families, and - because there are no payroll costs - they have enough money for loads of trucks and equipment.

Similar patterns are also to be found all over Europe. In Germany and Austria around 97% of all firefighters are volunteers, but in most other countries the percentage is still 70% to 80%. As I have mentioned on this site before, even the largest German cities with full time paid fire departments rely on volunteers for backup. Berlin with 3.5 million citizens has 34 full time fire stations, but also has a network of nearly 50 volunteer stations too.

Here in the US, we also have huge numbers of volunteers outside large cities and towns, because in some States the distances between communities are such that most small towns are for all practical purposes on their own when it comes to fire response. Just as in Germany, many communities here with less than 2, 500 citizens have a fire department, often with as many as five pieces of apparatus. In some countries, such as Chile, all operational firefighters are volunteer, including Santiago the capital - which has 5.5 million people!

Added by Rob Johnson on 05 October 2021.

Nassau County, the Long Island community just to the East of New York City has a population of 1.4 million and is protected by no less than 190 all-volunteer fire departments. My own, Manhasset-Lakeville, served a total of 43, 00 citizens from five fire stations with eleven pumpers, two tower ladders, one quint and two rescue squad trucks, as well as three ambulances and five chief’s cars, staffed by around 250 volunteers. Last year they attended 1,200 fire, rescue, service and false alarms plus around 700 EMS runs.

Added by Rob Johnson on 05 October 2021.

Said it before but there 11 pumps and 1 aerial plus host of other trucks must be very underused. Redcar with similar population has two appliances.

Added by CraigW on 06 October 2021.

Two aerials!

Added by Rob Johnson on 06 October 2021.

If Cleveland is anything like other UK fire brigades it spends around 80% of its annual budget on payroll and employee benefits. Kehl spends nothing, which means it has roughly five times as much to spend on appliances, fire stations and equipment. As long as Germany has a million unpaid volunteer firefighters willing and actually enthusiastic to do the job - which it does - this alternative works. For minor say-to-day incidents, it may not make much difference. But it can be very advantageous on those infrequent occasions when major incidents occur.

Added by Rob Johnson on 06 October 2021.

Craig I expect you are probably familiar with Cleveland’s fire coverage of Middlesbrough, a town with 150,000 citizens. When I lived near there, they had four pumps, a TTL and an ET, but that line up has probably changed since then. I am very familiar with Heidelberg, where I lived as a student many years ago. It has the same population, and is one of the cities in Germany which has a paid full time fire service. Unlike most, this does not provide ambulance service. There are two full time fire stations with five pumps, two TTLs, two rescues, three pod transporters, eleven pods, two command vans and miscellaneous staff and support vehicles.

So far, so good! Looks a lot like a similar British town….Next, there are eight volunteer fire stations, with eleven pumps, another TTL, a hose wagon and another hazmat truck for major hazmat incidents. As you say, these respond to relatively few alarms, but they are always available if a really serious incident occurs, or multiple incidents occur simultaneously. And the additional cost is pretty small, because none of the volunteers are paid, and quite a few of their trucks are units which have already seen service with the full time crews, so the only extra costs are to maintain them in good condition.

Added by Rob Johnson on 07 October 2021.

Perhaps I should add that Heidelberg has 116 paid full time firefighters, of which around 30 are on watch 24/7.

The combined volunteer force numbers approximately 300, of which 60 to 75 are usually able to respond within five minutes, with each of the eight fire stations individually dispatched as needed. This effectively triples the full time resources in terms of both personnel and pumping appliances, as well as adding extra specialist hazmat and water relay capabilities if needed.

Added by Rob Johnson on 07 October 2021.

Do you think their experience of devastation in WW2 and being on the Cold War frontline had a bearing on these large numbers? ie maintaining a civil defence element like the UK's (now disbanded) AFS

Added by CraigW on 10 October 2021.

Yes I do think these were important factors influencing the continuing interest in volunteering in Germany, and the numbers are quite amazing, with more than 1.3 million volunteers in a population of 80 million! But a very similar pattern still exists in Austria, which did not have the same experience. That country has only six paid fire services. I believe the main driver is that fires are relatively infrequent in smaller communities, and in some places urban settlements are (or were) too far from one another for mutual aid to be reliable.

Other countries which experienced very little war damage have huge proportions of unpaid volunteers, because of distances between towns - including Australia, the US and most South American countries, so that is a factor but probably not the main one. To my mind, history is another reason. In Germany, France, Austria, Spain, Portugal as well as the US and as far afield as Japan, volunteer fire brigades predated paid ones - and the tradition of local communities looking after themselves has remained strong. Tokyo has more than 200 local volunteer fire stations along with 80 full time ones. The UK is actually quite the exception, with almost all fire fighters paid whether the are full time or on call. I personally attribute this to a very militant FBU, especially in the years just after WWII. The only other countries which come close are Italy and Israel, but both still have quite large numbers of volunteers too.

Added by Rob Johnson on 10 October 2021.

New Zealand is another example of a country where distances between communities still are making unpaid voluntary fire brigades an economic necessity.

81% of firefighters there are unpaid volunteers -and the country has a fire station for every 7,650 citizens. Out of 653 fire stations, only 43 are paid full time.

Added by Rob Johnson on 11 October 2021.

Please add your comments about this picture using the form below.

Comments

Your Name

Your email address - this will be shown on the page and will allow the system to notify you of further comments added to this picture.