As firefighting has a rich history throughout the world, traditions in this profession vary widely from country to country.
Australia
In Australia, fire services are state/territory organisations.
In several states, there are three principal fire burning organisations. One is salaried and (primarily) handles urban areas one is (primarily) volunteer and (primarily) handles rural areas and the other is government managed public land (mainly forests and plantations).
In the Australian Capital Territory:
- Australian Capital Territory Fire Brigade
- ACT Rural Fire Service
In New South Wales:
- New South Wales Fire Brigades
- Rural Fire Service
In the Northern Territory:
- Northern Territory Fire and Rescue Service
- Bushfires NT
In Queensland :
- Queensland Fire and Rescue Service
- Rural Fire Service Queensland
In South Australia
- Country Fire Service
- Metropolitan Fire Service
In Tasmania
- Tasmania Fire Service
In Victoria:
- Country Fire Authority
- Metropolitan Fire Brigade (Melbourne)
- Department of Sustainability & Enviornment
In Western Australia, FESA is the overarching body. The fire services consist of:
- Career Fire and Rescue Service - salaried staff. Abbreviated to FRS or CFRS.
- Volunteer Fire and Rescue Service. Abbreviated to VFRS.
- Volunteer Bush Fire Service. Abbreviated to BFS.
- Volunteer Fire Service - VFRS and BFS combined and abbreviated to VFS.
- Volunteer Emergency Service Brigades - VFRS, BFS, State Emergency Service and/or Volunteer Marine Rescue. Abbreviated to VES and previously called FESA units.
FESA funds the CFRS and VFRS vehicles, stations, equipment and training. Local government funds the others. Money for local government is sourced through the Emergency Services Levy.
Austria
The structure in Austria is similar to Germany. There are just 6 career fire services in Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Salzburg and Linz. As of 2007, some 4,527 volunteer fire departments, the back-bone of the Austrian fire service, could rely on about 320,000 men and women voluntary firefighters as active members. Fire departments exist in even the smallest Austrian villages, where they contribute to community life, usually by organizing fairs and other fund-raising activities. But also larger departments in towns from a few thousand to up to 100,000 inhabitants still largely rely on volunteers, yet some are nowadays forced to have one or more de facto career firefighters, employed by the municipality and possibly reinforced by young men who chose community service instead of the still-compulsory military service, for daily maintenance duties and to increase the availability of personnel during working hours. This is necessary, as such larger departments usually have to deal with several hundred interventions per year. In addition to volunteers and career departments, some 328 companies are required by law to run their own fire service, which may be manned by career firefighters and/or part timers who normally work on ordinary jobs in the company. This includes major airports, oil refineries, petro-chemical factories and many other businesses, even hospitals and clinics. Those departments are usually integrated in the contingency plans of the area and may therefore be called upon for reinforcing the volunteer departments outside the company grounds as well.
Brazil
In Brazil, fire services are militarized like the Sapeurs-pompiers of France. Each state has its own Military Firefighters Corps (in Portuguese: Corpo de Bombeiros Militar ). Cities of southern Brazil, with traditional German communities, have volunteer firefighters since nineteenth century.
Canada
Large cities and most towns have full-time fire departments and firefighters. Smaller towns and other municipalities employ part-time volunteer firefighters. All municipal fire departments are publicly operated. Private companies do operate for fire protection on private property. Airport fire departments are operated by local airport authorities. The Department of National Defence has its own firefighters on Canadian Forces bases. Some provinces have firefighting crews to handle forest fires.
Chile
In Chile, firefighters are called "Bomberos". They are volunteers, which means they finance the acquisition, maintenance and operation of their buildings and equipment (including firetrucks) rather than rely upon government allocations. All the officers are democratically elected by the volunteers. The government does not finance specialization courses for firefighters. Instead, they have to pay for it on their own. 'Bomberos' is the name given for the firefighters in most Spanish speaking countries.
Founded in 1851, Valparaíso's Fire Department is the oldest. Following are the Santiago Fire Department established in 1863. Now all cities have a Fire Department each of which has its own officers and companies.
Many of the companies were founded by resident members of European colonies such as the Germans, British, Spanish, French and Italians.
Denmark
In Denmark fire fightning is, by law, a municipal task. Every municipal council are responsible for providing fire fighting and rescue services. The only requirements according to the law for this fire service are that the vehicles have to be manned with the necessary crew for the task at hand and they have to be on the way within 5 minutes after the alarm has come in. Every municiaplity has to perform a risk analysis and based on this maintain a competent fire fighting service. The fire department itself can be run as any one of the following:
- A public fire department managed and run by the municipality either full time og part time.
- A volunteer fire department contracted by the municipality
- Arrangement with neighbouring municipalities
- Outsourced to a private company (e.g. Falck)
- Contract with the government run Danish Emergency Management Agency (DEMA), DEMA has stations in 5 locations scattered over the country.
All fire fighters ( brandmænd ) have the same training, no matter if they are volunteers, full time professionals or public or private employees. The training takes 5 weeks and can be taken in several fire fighting schools all over the country.
Finland
Main article: Fire fighting in FinlandFinnish firefighters ( palomiehet ) are organised into professional, half-ordinary and voluntary fire brigades. Professional firefighters in Finland graduate from one of the two firefighting schools in Finland. Firefighters in half-ordinary and voluntary fire brigades are trained volunteers.
There are approximately 85,000 emergency missions a year in Finland, of which fires account for 18%. According to the Ministry of the Interior, Finnish fire brigades extinguish around 12,000 fires every year. Voluntary fire brigades have a remarkable role in the fire rescue service and cover a large part of Finland's area.
France
French firefighters are called Sapeurs-Pompiers, and reflecting the rural nature of much of the country (wide areas with low density of population), the Volunteer Fire brigade (SPV, sapeur-pompier volontaire ), with over 190,000 firefighters is the largest firefighting force in France. In addition to being called out from work to attend an incident, they may be on standby at firestations outside their working hours; the intervention and attending hours are paid by the session. The volunteer fire brigade is also a way to promote the culture of civil defense and of solidarity amongst the population. The Professional Fire Brigade (SPP, sapeur-pompier professionnel ) numbers over 30,000 firefighters, employed by the départements and working in shifts. In some towns there is a mixture of professionals and volunteers, in others only one or the other.
In Paris and Marseille, the fire brigades are made up of military personnel, but under the control of the Ministry of the Interior in a similar way to the Gendarmes. The Paris Fire Brigade (BSPP) has around 7,000 firefighters, and the Marseille Marine Fire Battalion (BMPM) has over 2,000.
French firefighters tackle over 3.6 million incidents each year:
- 10% fires,
- 10% traffic accidents (freeing the casualties and prehospital care as first responders),
- 59% other help to people (mainly prehospital care as first responders),
- 21% other incidents (gas escapes, stuck elevators, etc).
With the SAMU (French EMS), they are the backbone of the French civil defense.
Germany
Main article: German fire servicesGerman fire brigades ( Feuerwehr ) are organized on a town/village basis, with each town having at least one brigade. In Germany there are about 25,000 local brigades - 24,000 volunteer fire brigades ( Freiwillige Feuerwehr ), 800 private fire brigades with public accreditation ( Werkfeuerwehr ), which mostly protect large industrial complexes or airports, many private fire brigades with no public accreditation ( Betriebsfeuerwehr ) , and 100 public fire brigades ( Berufsfeuerwehr ) compulsory by law for large towns and cities. However, public brigades are often supported by and cooperate with volunteer brigades. Some volunteer brigade
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