Romania's emergency services upgrade covers decades old car fleet, equipment renewal

The upgrade program for the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (IGSU) is meant to solve “chronic” problems the system has been confronted with, Raed Arafat, a state secretary with the Interior Affairs Minister, said, quoted by Agerpres. The EUR 600 million sum will be used to renew 41% of the IGSU’s decades-old car fleet for extinguishing fires and for the purchase of various new equipment. Arafat explained that fire trucks from the 70s and 80s are still in use and they are sent several at a time for one intervention, for fear they would break down on the way. “You send the 30-year-old fire truck and expect it to reach the fire site that is 50 km away quickly. There is no guarantee that it would not break down 5 km away from the fire site,” he said, quoted by News.ro. The state secretary explained that a major issue is the lack of aerial ladder trucks for firefighters. These have started being renewed as part of a European project but their number is still small. “This year, through the project you’ve just seen, we have 16 aerial ladder trucks to buy, but this doesn’t cover our needs. To cover at least all the cities and localities of over 20,000 inhabitants and where there are blocks of flats of 8 and 10 levels, the only rescue means, sometimes, is this aerial ladder truck or platform,” Arafat said. At the same time, the country lacks the intervention services for sea emergencies. As such, five ships for intervention at sea will be purchased under the upgrade program. “We do not have large intervention forces in the case of ship fires, for instance. We need not only new equipment. We have invited here experts from Marseille, from the French Military Marine. […] The conclusion is that, regardless of what is around, it is compulsory that firemen have an exit direction towards the sea, to extinguish fires, to rescue, and including for decontamination actions. And this is also one of the projects that will be covered by this sum, meaning […] a larger ship, four medium-sized ones, which allow intervention at sea, in the Danube Delta, on the Danube, especially for extinguishing fires,” Arafat said. Breathing equipment for tunnel fire brigades will also be purchased under the new program, as will container trucks, and other equipment for forest fires, “which, unfortunately, because of climate change, will increase in number,” Arafat explained. On the aviation side, the program entails the acquisition of average-size rescue helicopters that can intervene in difficult conditions at sea, in mountains or other parts of the country. These will add to the existing SMURD helicopters. The EUR 600 million sum will also cover the acquisition of 250 ambulances. IGSU has EUR 160 million to spend until the end of this year on purchasing large-capacity motopumps, additional trucks, trucks for special operations, and breathing equipment for subway interventions.