manhattan said:
Museborn -
It would be great if you could keep us up-to-date on the European view of events and any FD activity.
Thanks.
I live in Belgium and they says 34 killed and 230 injuries.
This terror attack was probably precipitated due to arrest of Salah Abdeslam by Brussels SWAT, a eighth man from Paris attacks.
About FD activity, the Brussels Fire Dept has been fast overwhelmed. EMS from other cities in Belgium and also from France (Valenciennes, Lille) come in Belgium to assist. 25 hospitals in and around Brussels activate the "MASH plan" who consiste in several proceedings to receive these numerous injuries.
For information, the FD in Brussels is called SIAMU (Service d'Incendie et d'Aide M?dicale Urgente - Fire and Medical Emergency Service), composed of 1000 firefighters. It consist of
- 1 big firehouse who home several fire companies (including here a tower ladder) and ambulances, all special vehicles, officer cars (battalion), administratives offices, repair shops, and 100/112 call center (911 equivalent number) of Brussel region
- 6 little firehouses
- 3 firehouses with only ambulances
These stations is implemented to respond within 7 minutes anywhere in the capital... in theory
The FD handles only BLS ambulances (as many fire departments in Europe). Here this is the hospitals who handle the ALS runs with cars (called SMUR) with 1 doctor and 1 nurse from local hospitals, sometimes there is also 1 chauffeur.
You have in Brussels :
- 22 ambulances (BLS)
- 11 SMUR (ALS with doctor and nurse) at the hospitals
- 11 pumpers
- 9 ladders
- 4 tankers
- 4 officer cars (they are all in the main firehouse)
- special units (marine, haz mat, rescue (rope), heavy rescue (hurst tool and collapse), big rescue crane, foam tender, command post, RAC unit, ventilation, rescue dog, ... ...) in the main firehouse
- a big vehicles reserve in the sub-basement of the main firehouse
The typical fire box run is :
- 1 pumper
- 1 ladder
- 1 officer car
- 1 ambulance
The FD shift is as follow : 24 hours on duty (8AM - 8AM), and then 72 hours break. As you can understand, there is 4 big platoon.
They handle 65 000 responses per year (55 000 of them are ambulances), so 180 per day.