The Barcelona Civil Protection, Fire Prevention and Extinction and Rescue Service, the city’s firefighters, will close the year with 21,386 interventions, 6.5% more than last year. The count is from December 21 and the last days of 2023 will have to be added, with an average of around sixty services a day throughout the year.
These data were presented yesterday at the Vall d’Hebron fire station, which has a new practice tower designed based on input from trainers to be able to practice and improve performance techniques in a home. Complex services that require good training for the firemen and women who, last year, saved 7,692 people. A service that grows year after year and that has a lot to do with people who are alone at home and suffer some mishap that causes the Fire Department to go there, either to break down the door or to rescue the man or woman through the facade in cases, also increasingly recurrent, of morbid obesity that makes mobility impossible.
The best fire is the one that doesn’t have to go out. This is an old slogan in favor of prevention that was revived yesterday during the presentation of the new practice tower at the Vall d’Hebron park. A prevention in which firefighters participate, with talks and inspection. Last week, without going very far, La Vanguardia accompanied a group of inspectors to audit several premises in the Poblenou gulf triangle, a procession that was joined by firefighters who reviewed all the security and prevention systems of the nightclubs.
In the figures presented yesterday, there are also 5,038 services that are technical assistance such as water leaks and 4,449 exits for assistance in explosions or fires. A total of 1,625 fires originated indoors, 1,088 in homes.
Mayor Jaume Collboni, the deputy mayor of Security, Albert Batlle, and the fire chief, Sebastià Massagué, took charge yesterday of taking stock.
The new practice tower has involved an investment of more than 2.5 million euros and is added to the existing ones in the Zona Franca, Llevant, Sant Andreu and Montjuïc parks.
Precisely in yesterday’s government commission at the Barcelona City Council, explained Batlle, the problem of the drought was addressed, since if it continues there is an added danger of fires in the forest masses of Collserola, Montjuïc and the Marina range.
Collboni emphasized that one of the priorities of the municipal government is to bet on prevention, as well as on strengthening the workforce and providing the material and technical resources that professionals demand. A third priority, he said, is continuing education. In this sense, the new tower allows Firefighters to train and practice rescue at height or carry out firefighting drills.
The new practice tower simulates a small neighborhood building that covers three levels and allows you to work in different scenarios that vary according to the exercise. The construction has a ground floor height plus another eight. The flat deck, accessible and located at more than 24 meters, is also enabled to carry out rescue installations at height or work with the dry column that reaches up there.
A labyrinth has been built on the basement floor -2, a space prepared to be filled with paraffin smoke and for exercises such as search and rescue of victims, orientation without visibility or advancing in complex spaces.
