Switzerland
COUNTY FIRE goes
International
A Ride-Along Holiday
By Ryan Beckers
Add Fontana and Oak Hills to the list of top Southern California vacation spots
for Europeans looking to catch a slice of American summer fun.
Fire back in the 1990s. This was his 21st trip to the U.S., while for Haarlander it was his first. The others had been here before, but were still eager
to learn and share ideas and experiences.
That is, if you’re anything like these guys:
Meet Niels Pirck, Jan Haarlander, Tim Pietrasch and Markus Priemel, all from
Ahrensburg, Germany (near Hamburg), and all firefighters with the volunteer
force there. Wanting to mix in “a bit of adventure” with their relaxation, the
group solicited several American fire departments for permission to engage in
a kind of immersion training that included full shift ride-alongs.
County Fire’s online presence, including sbcfire.org, had caught their eye, and
that, coupled with our proximity to both the beach and Las Vegas, led them to
send a letter to our department (as well as to places such as Detroit). Eventually the group received word back and arranged a visit through Assistant Chief
Jim Johnstone, who invited the group to join County Fire for several shifts worth
of calls, meals, training, and station life. The group was split into two pairs
who would alternate ride outs at Station 71 in Fontana and 305 in Hesperia.
Priemel, a captain, had done this before, having visited Miami-Dade County
Some of the organizational compare/contrast discussions with the Germans mirrored what Swiss Firefighter Mirielle Glauser (main story on this
page) described. Ahrensburg runs no EMS calls; the volunteer staffing often
means up to 10 persons on a rig heading to a fire; response areas were
greater but call volumes less.
Pirck said it was a great experience overall. “We explored how you handle
different calls and were able to take part in some training with you,” Pirck
said. “We are proud that we made friends with firefigthers from ‘the other
side of the world.’ We were impressed with the engagement, support, hospitality and the ‘inside look’ everyone offered us.”
Pirck went on to thank Battalion Chiefs Chris Norton and John Chamberlin,
Captains John McGarvey, Jim Gras and Matt Smerber, as well as all the firefighters they encountered on the working portion of their vacation.
COUNTY FIRE GOES INTERNATIONAL
Sharing the Firefighter Experience
By Jennifer Deshon
Everyone knows that the fire service is one big family. This
holds true now more than ever because of our increasing
use of the Internet. Websites such as Facebook are
allowing firefighters around the world to connect and
learn from each other and just share in the “firefighter
experience.”
Swiss Firefighter Mireille Glauser recently spent part of
her West Coast vacation visiting with a firefighter from
San Bernardino County Fire (SBCoFD). The two had
recently connected through an online discussion group
for firefighters. Firefighter Glauser also stopped on her
way from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and visited the crew
at San Bernardino County Fire Station 312 in Victorville.
Mireille got to see first hand the impressive size of this
county, as well as the massive number of calls that we
run. The entire country of Switzerland is only 15,940
square miles, with a population of approximately 8 million
people, making it about 20 percent smaller than San
Bernardino County, but with four times the population.
The vast majority of firefighters in Switzerland are not
professional. As a general rule, a city will only receive a
full-time, professional firefighting force if the population
of the city exceeds 100,000. Most cities and towns have
“volunteer” firefighters, community members who have
other professions, and respond to emergency calls as
needed. These volunteers are paid per call, much like
the few remaining paid-call firefighters we have here
in County Fire. In Switzerland, these volunteers also
receive a tax break as an incentive for their service to the
community. There are about 94,000 volunteers working
out of almost 1500 Swiss fire stations.
There are only 15 professional fire stations in all of Switzerland,
including a station that is privately owned by a large corporation.
Approximately 1200 career firefighters work out of these 15
stations. While County Fire staffs its stations with an average
of three-to-five firefighters per day, the average Swiss station \