Odesa firefighters: vehicle purchase for volunteer fire team
In recent years, four major fires occurred in Odesa: children's camp "Victoria", psychiatric hospital, hotel "Tokyo-star" and Odesa College burned down.
After the college tragedy, which killed 16 people, on 07.02.2020 the non-profit organization "Association of Volunteer Firefighters of Ukraine" was officially registered. The team's main goal is to help respond quickly to fires and deal with them effectively.
Similar experience is already quite common in Poland, Italy, Canada, USA, Germany, Scandinavian countries and Latin America. According to statistics, the number of professional firefighters in them is significantly smaller than the number of volunteers.
The Odesa team began its activities by conducting free fire safety trainings for children and teachers, as well as kindergarten educators. Understanding these rules is the basis of people's behavior during fires and can help prevent complicating the situation.
And on 18.06.2020, an interaction plan with the Emergency Service for joint response and assistance to the population was officially signed.
Currently the team includes: current and former Emergency Service employees, police, doctors and caring Odesa residents who in their free time want and can provide assistance. Volunteer firefighters can independently deal with small fire sources. When water needs to be supplied, or more people are needed, or equipment available at the Emergency Service, they ask for help. For this they have radio communication directly with the service.
In a year and a half the team has already helped: more than 5000 people, saved over 200 animals and made more than 7000 callouts to provide assistance.
"Until recently we had a vehicle on a free basis, which we converted for emergency rescue work. But at the demand of the company that owned it, we returned it. Currently we cannot provide assistance in full.
Daily calls come from citizens who need help, but without a vehicle the volunteer fire team cannot reach the scene in time, and also deliver emergency rescue equipment, including the only cube of life in Odesa, necessary for rescuing people from upper floors."
