Fire department Kaiserslautern

Fire department Kaiserslautern
Office of the City of Kaiserslautern
Professional fire brigade
Founding year:	1955
Locations:	1
Employee:	116 (as of 2019)
Volunteer firefighter
Founding year:	1858
Departments:	12
Active members:	226 (as of 2019)
Youth fire brigade
Founding year:	1998
Groups:	4th
www.feuerwehr-kaiserslautern.de

The Kaiserslautern fire brigade consists of full-time and voluntary workers . As a public fire brigade, it is run by the city of Kaiserslautern . It employs a total of 320 active volunteer and full-time firefighters who deploy in over 50 emergency vehicles of all kinds.

Professional fire brigade

The full-time workers occupy the so-called first fire engine in the city, which is housed at the main fire station . There are currently four emergency vehicles (a fire fighting vehicle [46], a powder tank fire-fighting vehicle 4000 [25], a command vehicle [11-1] and a turntable ladder with cage 23-12 [34-1]) that are deployed first during operations. Depending on the situation, other vehicles can be deployed instead of these vehicles, which are initially also manned by the full-time staff.

The full-time part of the Kaiserslautern fire brigade consists of approx. 116 officers, who are divided into three guard departments, who each manage the operations in 24-hour shifts, as well as several dispatchers from the control center and the defense administration.

Volunteers

In the voluntary part of the fire brigade Kaiserslautern about 220 people work. These are distributed over three associations.

The Central Association , which is responsible for the city center, consists of four fire engines that are housed in the main fire station. The alert readiness of these four trains rotates on a weekly basis. The entire train is alerted for larger deployments in urban areas or at night. When deployed during the day, the so-called daily alarm loop is triggered. This affects the forces of all four trains, which are also available during the day. Since the forces of the Central Association primarily support the professional fire brigade, they are trained on almost all vehicles of the main fire station.

The North Association and the South Association consist of additional trains that are stationed in several districts of the university town. These include the trains Dansenberg , Erfenbach , Erlenbach , Hohenecken , IG-Nord, Mölschbach , Morlautern and Siegelbach . In principle, these work independently and are supported by people from the city center if necessary. Each of these trains has at least one water-carrying fire engine, which is supplemented by other emergency vehicles on some trains.

A new concept is the integration of the fire brigade in the districts of Dansenberg and Mölschbach in a first responder system. The fire brigade goes out for numerous medical emergencies in order to bridge the time until the emergency doctor arrives.

Youth fire brigade

In addition to the active unit, the volunteer fire brigade in Kaiserslautern has a youth fire brigade consisting of young people between the ages of 10 and 18 (they meet at the main station) who are interested in the fire brigade but are still too young for active duty.

history

Kaiserslautern, which in the Middle Ages already had a city wall and trenches to defend against attackers, was regularly ravaged by severe conflagrations . How the fire extinguishing systems were organized at that time cannot be reconstructed today. That is why the history of fire protection in Kaiserslautern begins with the oath of towers in the transition period between the Middle Ages and modern times.

16th and 17th centuries

The oldest surviving fire-fighting regulations come from the council minutes from 1597. The tower oath obliged the guards on the towers to sound the alarm not only in the event of attacks, but also in the event of a fire. Then the gate guard had to run to the collegiate church and ring the storm bell . According to the military organization, each citizen was now assigned his function. He had to report to the town hall with a faucet and was then assigned to the group to which his guild was assigned. In an emergency, every guild had to occupy its city tower and city gate and take a position in front of the town hall, as fires were often started at that time to take the city by surprise and rob it in its confusion. At that time, pitch wreaths were lit to illuminate the fireplace; the building guild brought together ladders from all over the city to use them to climb and cover the roofs of the neighboring houses. The roof of the burning house itself was torn down with tear hooks and extinguished with water from buckets.

After the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War , the Kaiserslautern fortifications were expanded to be able to withstand artillery fire, at which time the first fire engine was procured. When Kaiserslautern was shot at by Croatian General Hatzfeld from July 17 to July 20, 1635, the city burned down completely. The few survivors who had managed to escape to the nearby wooded areas did not return until six weeks later and began to rebuild. On February 23, 1663, the mayor ordered as many extinguishers as possible to be procured to improve the catastrophic conditions and to clean chimneys quarterly. From then on, the old fire extinguishing regulations came into force again.

18th century

In 1736 a council member was again elected to be the builder, to whom the fire-fighting equipment, such as buckets, hand-made paper, hooks, ladders and the fire engine, which was presumably procured by order of the French administration at the time, is subordinate. In 1741, a strict fire protection order came into force, which threatened high prison sentences and fines for handling burning pipes in the stable or using open lights, stone or straw torches on the street. On July 23, 1766, a fire show was set up, which had to inspect all furnace systems and destroy them if there were any defects. In addition, a fine of 40 guilders was suspended for citizens who negligently caused a fire.

On the advice of the court mechanic Beiser, sent by the electoral government, in 1774, further fire engines were procured, so that Kaiserslautern was able to present two large and several small syringes in 1785. At that time, the population was also obliged to fight forest fires if they were not used to defend the city. Anyone who resisted this was reported as a punishment. In addition, the smoking ban in stables has been extended to a general smoking ban on the street. In 1786 a fire show was carried out again, during which numerous defects were found in the fire places in the houses.

19th century

From 1815 it is known that in Kaiserslautern the usability of the fire escapes had to be officially determined. There are also reports of numerous new extinguishing buckets acquired during the same period. In 1816, Kaiserslautern went back to its old ruling house, which commissioned the then police commissioner Müllinghoff to report on the municipal fire-fighting system. He also applied for the purchase of an equipment trolley to transport the fire buckets, as well as the reorganization of the fire fighting teams. This form of organization, which dates back to 1823, was also a model for the later development of the volunteer fire department.

In August 1858, the Kaiserslautern municipal fire brigade was founded under its current name. During this time - the middle of the 19th century - more and more sports clubs and young men who had gathered impressions from the fire brigades in other cities from hiking and traveling were involved in fire fighting. Kaiserslautern was allowed to keep its extinguishing regulations for the time being, but strict action was taken against those who refused, so that the fire brigade was effective. The fire extinguishing system in Kaiserslautern changed after underground hydrants were available at all major intersections in 1890 , and these were kept ready for use even in winter. The fire brigade was divided into four companies and newly uniformed. At the same time, plant fire brigades were also set up in the worsted spinning mill , in the sewing machine factory GM Pfaff AG and in the Palatinate sewing machine and bicycle factory, formerly Gebrüder Kayser AG .

1900-1933

On the weekend of August 1st and 2nd, 1908, the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation was celebrated. From around 1900 the public buildings were equipped with fire extinguishing systems, the theater even with a sprinkler system. In this way, the Kaiserslautern volunteer fire brigade was able to handle the workload safely up to the First World War . The First World War thinned the ranks of the firefighters and the equipment became obsolete, replacement was out of the question due to inflation. The First World War, however, brought motorization forward quickly, so that the first Daimler motorized sprayer could be purchased and put into service as early as the spring of 1923. Gradually, more devices were procured. In 1926/1927, the Kaiserslautern fire brigade received its permanent fire station. In the event of an alarm, eight to ten men were immediately available, and the four trains of the volunteer fire brigade could be called by a bell system to reinforce them. The fire brigade now received more modern protective equipment, including breathing apparatus.

1933-1955

Turntable ladder of the BF Kaiserslautern from 1952, today the Rhineland-Palatinate Fire Brigade Museum Hermeskeil

The fire brigade in Kaiserslautern was initially not affected by the political upheavals and harmonization of the Third Reich and was able to continue operating in accordance with its old motto “God for honor, the neighbor to fight”. It was not until the Air Protection Act from 1935 that the Fire Extinguishing Act was changed and the fire brigade and police were merged. In 1937 the volunteer fire department was then in fire-fighting police renamed and with the law on fire equipment on November 23, 1939 final with the police into line . As a result of the mobilization on August 26, 1939, large parts of the fire brigade were called into the Wehrmacht , the remainder was supplemented by substitutes, the youth fire brigade and, from 1943, a uniformed and well-trained women's fire brigade. The fire-fighting police in Kaiserslautern were particularly involved in the bombing of Kaiserslautern with incendiary bombs from 1944 , whereby five comrades lost their lives and numerous others were seriously injured. Shortly before the Americans took Kaiserslautern, the order was given to the fire police to bring the fire engines to safety across the Rhine. On May 19, 1945 they were all able to return safely to Kaiserslautern.

After the capitulation, the reconstruction began immediately, whereby the fire protection was initially only maintained with improvisational means. Nevertheless, the fire station was quickly restored and the severely damaged telecommunications system resumed operation in late 1946. However, the former members of the volunteer fire brigade were only able to return in part, as the fire extinguishing force for Kaiserslautern was limited to 64 men.

Since 1955

Due to the increasing number of operations that the volunteer fire brigade had to do in addition to their professional activity, the establishment of a full-time department was proposed at a meeting of the fire department on December 11, 1953 and decided on July 15, 1954. It took place on January 1, 1955. In the future, the first fire brigade of the professional fire brigade would generally move out during operations, while the volunteer fire brigade was called to manned the fire station and re-deployed.

Since the men of the volunteer fire brigade lived all over the city and telephones were still rare at the time, the problem of alerting always arose. This was solved in the 1970s with the alarm clock . In order to shorten the time after the first fire brigade moved out until the fire station was occupied by the volunteer fire brigade, who usually came on foot, residential buildings were built for the volunteers whose residents were planned as "quick reinforcements". A loudspeaker was installed in the corridors of these houses through which the control center dispatcher could alert the volunteers directly.

From 1970 to 1974 the staff of the professional fire brigade was increased, which allowed the introduction of the three-shift system, which was made necessary by reducing working hours. The working time was now 56 hours per week. Because of this, as well as due to the increasing number of deployments and higher requirements, the number of full-time workers continued to grow.

With the dissolution of civil protection in the early 1970s, another 50 members of this unit came to the volunteer fire brigade with their vehicles and equipment. It was not possible to accommodate these federal vehicles in the fire station at that time, so they were parked in the potato hall, which was then in a poor condition.

With the incorporation of Dansenberg , Erlenbach , Erfenbach , Hohenecken , Morlautern , Mölschbach and Siegelbach in 1969, which with the exception of Dansenberg had a well-equipped and trained volunteer fire brigade, the number of volunteer firefighters in Kaiserslautern increased to around 230 um In order to do justice to the different training levels of these volunteer fire brigades, which now number eleven trains, a uniform training was decided. With the construction of the new fire station, volunteers and full-time workers were able to accommodate their vehicles together and had sufficient space available for training and social events. The alarm clock have since been carried Pager type Motorola pageboy II replaces that are to this day still in use.

The Kaiserslautern fire brigade has so far been spared major disaster operations. Even with the air day disaster in nearby Ramstein, the city fire brigade did not move . It experienced its greatest commitment during the 2006 World Cup , where Kaiserslautern was one of the venues for the games. Supported by numerous fire brigades from the near and distant area, several fire brigade locations (including a second main fire station in the east of the city) were set up in Kaiserslautern, from where the emergency services could have quickly approached accidents. Fortunately, the number of stakes did not increase significantly during the World Cup.

Control center

Until 1995 the control center of the fire brigade was manned by officers from the security departments, only then was the current four-shift plan with twelve-hour shifts introduced. The duty roster is drawn up by the dispatchers on their own responsibility. The integrated control center , which has existed since 2005, is manned by three to six dispatchers, half of whom are provided by the rescue service ( ASB and DRK ) and half by the fire brigade, depending on the likely situation . There are a total of eight dispatcher workstations and five exception inquiry stations in the integrated control center, and there are also four exception inquiry stations in the Kaiserslautern town hall.

Special forces

Height rescue

The height rescue group of the Kaiserslautern fire brigade was founded in 1997; it consists of twelve height rescuers and eight trainers. This special unit of the fire brigade serves on the one hand to train the rest of the fire brigade in the area of fall protection and on the other hand handles various rescue and relief measures in such exposed locations that they cannot be mastered with conventional means (such as turntable ladders). The main rescue vehicles of the height rescue group are a turntable ladder and a crew transport vehicle .

Rescue diver

The fire brigade Kaiserslautern operates a rescue diving group , which belongs to the water rescue train and is recruited exclusively from fire brigade officers. Its history began in 1969 when the fire brigade procured non-standardized diving equipment and such dives were forbidden by the chief officer and the mayor at the time. This diving ban remained in force until 1971, when the order was issued to set up a diving relay at the fire department. In the same year three fire brigade officers were trained as divers, another diver was hired, he already had a diving license from the Navy . In 1972 they had five trained fire service divers. In 1972 the squadron was expanded to include three more forces. Since 2001, the Kaiserslautern fire brigade has been able to train divers itself in cooperation with the state fire brigade and disaster control school in Koblenz.

In 1974 the fire brigade put a self-built water rescue vehicle , made from the chassis of a tank fire engine and a box body donated by the Deutsche Bundespost , into service. This vehicle could hold all the equipment and also allow the divers to change their clothes on the mission. In 1987 this vehicle was replaced by a roll-off container . This container offers space for nine divers, all their equipment and an inflatable boat. Although the diving group sees its task in rescuing people, unfortunately more than 90% of the missions only involve the recovery of corpses.

SbE team

The SbE team ( stress management after stressful missions ) in Kaiserslautern consists of employees from the fire brigade, the rescue service and the emergency pastoral care team. The group was founded as a result of the Ramstein flight conference with the aim of reducing the psychosocial effects of traumatic events on emergency services and preventing post-traumatic stress disorder . Thus, the SBE team is not only emergency services of the fire brigade, but also the control center staff, the Notfallseelsorgern, the civil protection units , the police , the ambulance service , the Agency for Technical Relief , as well as the management staff.

Emergency counseling

The emergency pastoral care team is a cooperation between the Kaiserslautern fire brigade and the churches of both denominations . Like the SbE team, it was founded as a result of the Ramstein flight conference accident . Its range of uses extends to:

Care of uninjured, injured and dying people at an accident site
Support of emergency services in particularly serious accidents
Acute care of emergency services
In cooperation with the police, delivery of news of death
Performing church rituals at the scene of the accident or in the home
Intervention in the event of an acute risk of suicide

Fire protection education

The fire protection education group of the fire brigade Kaiserslautern consists of 18 people, which fire protection education towards the end of kindergarten , in the 3rd / 4th Class , as well as in grade 9/10. The fire brigade has a predominantly advisory role here and supports the teachers and educators with materials or with special seminars.

First responder

A new concept in Kaiserslautern is the integration of the fire brigade into the rescue service, which has been increasingly implemented since 2005. This primarily affects the voluntary fire brigade units in the districts that are already deployed as first responder groups or are still in training. In addition to their normal fire brigade training, they have completed medical training courses A and B , as well as training on lay defibrillators . They are always used when the emergency doctor is called to their deployment area.

Environmental fire truck / universal fire truck

The first environmental fire-fighting vehicle (ULF) was put into service in 2003 and was unique in Germany at the time, in which the functions of a special vehicle for removing traces of oil were supplemented with fire-fighting equipment for initial measures in the area of fire fighting and technical assistance. In addition, in contrast to the converted sweepers such. B. at the fire brigade Mannheim , the appearance of a "real" fire engine can be achieved.

The chassis is an 11-ton truck from MAN. The cleaning units are driven by an 85 KVA generator. In this way, electricity can be provided in the event of major damage. The environmental fire truck also has a four-meter-high, extendable light mast. The vehicle also contains a centrifugal fire pump and a fresh water tank of around 2000 liters. Up to 200 bar pressure are available for cleaning the roadway. Water and high pressure are also used for extinguishing purposes. The water can be dispensed variably via two extinguishing lances. Later, the tactic was abandoned to deal with small fires and small traffic accidents only with this vehicle. Accordingly, unnecessary loading items were also removed.

In 2005 the vehicle was exhibited at the Interschutz trade fair in Hanover.

In 2011 a second ULF was put into service. The acquisition was necessary due to longer deployment and retrofitting times, as well as the increased frequency of defects in the first experimental vehicle. This time a significantly smaller 7.5-ton chassis from Mitsubishi was selected. The fresh water tank holds 2000 liters, and a pressure of 275 bar is available for lane cleaning. In 2013 the old ULF was handed over to the Winnweiler fire brigade.

Civil protection units

In accordance with Section 19 of the State Fire and Disaster Protection Act (LBKG), the districts and independent cities primarily use the public and private units of disaster protection to fulfill their tasks in disaster protection.

Public units are provided by the city of Kaiserslautern as a legal entity under public law. These are management, fire protection and technical assistance units of the professional or voluntary fire brigade Kaiserslautern.

The rapid response groups (SEG) in the areas of medical service , care service and supply are provided by private disaster control units, the aid organizations based in Kaiserslautern, as follows:

Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund : 1 SEG medical service, 1 SEG care
German Red Cross : 1 SEG medical service, 1 SEG care, 1 SEG care
Maltese Auxiliary Service : 1 SEG supply.

The rapid response groups are led by a senior emergency doctor (LNA) and an organizational manager (OrgL).

The city of Kaiserslautern receives further support from the emergency chaplaincy group (NFS), which is alerted in the event of accidents and major incidents and provides valuable assistance.

Fire station

The Kaiserslautern fire station consists of three vehicle halls, with the main building containing the first vehicle hall. In addition, the rest and work rooms of the emergency personnel, the administration wing, several workshops, a breathing apparatus , training rooms and a material store are located here . In the second vehicle hall there is a car workshop, a possibility to wash the emergency vehicles and most of the vehicles are housed. The vehicle hall 3 is a large part of the material store in which, for example, foaming agents and oil binders are stored.

Other fire departments

In addition to the Kaiserslautern fire department, there are other fire departments in Kaiserslautern. These do not belong to the Kaiserslautern fire department and are only mentioned here for the sake of completeness:

U.S. Military Administration Fire Department

Kaiserslautern has around 20,000 US citizens, as well as several US military barracks. In order to ensure fire protection for these, there is an American fire brigade in Kaiserslautern that operates a total of 6 fire stations in the Kaiserslautern area, 2 of which are in the area of the city of Kaiserslautern (one in the Vogelweh Housing Area and one at the eastern city entrance from Neustadt / Weinstrasse ).