The Civil Protection, Fire Prevention and Extinction and Rescue Service of Barcelona, ??the city’s Firefighters, will close the year with 21,386 interventions, 6.5% more than last year. The count is from last December 21 and the last days of 2023 will have to be added, with an average throughout the year of about sixty services per day.
These data were presented today at the Vall d’Hebron Firefighters Park, which has a new practice tower designed based on the contributions of the trainers to be able to exercise and improve performance techniques in a home. Complex services that require good training for firefighters who, last year, carried out 7,692 rescues of 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, which causes the firefighters to come either to break down the door or to rescue the man or woman through the façade in cases, also increasingly recurrent, of morbid obesity that makes mobility impossible.
The best fire is the one that doesn’t have to be put out. This is an old motto in favor of prevention that was revived today during the presentation of the practice tower in the Vall d’Hebron park. A prevention in which firefighters participate, with talks and inspections. Last week, without going any further, La Vanguardia accompanied a group of inspectors to audit several establishments in the Gulf of Poblenou triangle, a delegation that was joined by firefighters who reviewed all the security and prevention systems of the nightclubs.
The figures also show 5,038 services that are technical assistance such as water leaks and 4,449 exits for assistance in explosions or fires. Of the fires, 1,625 originated indoors, 1,088 of them in homes.
Mayor Jaume Collboni, the Deputy Mayor of Security, Albert Batlle, and the Fire Chief, Sebastià Massagué, have been responsible for taking stock.
The new practice tower has involved an investment of more than 2.5 million euros and is added to those already existing in the Zona Franca, Levante, Sant Andreu and Montjuïc parks.
Precisely in today’s government commission at the City Council, Batlle explained, the problem of drought has been addressed since if it continues there is an added danger of fires in the forest masses of Collserola, Montjuïc and the Sierra de Marina.
Collboni has highlighted that one of the priorities of the municipal government is to focus on prevention, as well as strengthening the workforce and providing the material and technical resources demanded by professionals. A third priority, he added, is continued training. In this sense, the new tower will allow firefighters to train and practice rescue at height or carry out firefighting drills.
The new tower simulates a small residential building that runs through three levels and allows you to work in different scenarios that vary depending on the exercise. The construction has a ground floor height plus another eight. The flat roof, accessible and located more than 24 meters high, is also enabled to carry out rescue installations at height or work with the dry column that reaches up there.
In the basement -2, a labyrinth has been built, 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.
