[HN Gopher] THW: Germany's army of volunteers for disaster relief
___________________________________________________________________
THW: Germany's army of volunteers for disaster relief
Author : Tomte
Score : 201 points
Date : 2021-07-21 06:40 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dw.com)
| gego wrote:
| There is a strong history of volunteer disaster relief
| organisations in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, from local Red
| Cross, Alpine and Automobile Clubs to voluntary fire brigades.
| Interesting and a bit different than the us def of NGO, that
| sometimes leads to misunderstandings...
| bonplan23 wrote:
| Interestingly the THW also operates the "virtual operations
| support team" (VOST). This group of volunteers is monitoring
| social media and detecting fake news with specialized software in
| order to aid crisis relief efforts.
| https://www.thw.de/SharedDocs/Meldungen/DE/Einsaetze/nationa...
| RGamma wrote:
| Trinken, helfen, weitertrinken
| pintxo wrote:
| T - trinken (drink) H - helfen (help) W -
| weitertrinken (continue to drink)
| 271828182846 wrote:
| for the uninitiated ... the drinking part is about alcohol.
| and I can confirm that especially Freiwillige Feuerwehr orgs
| enjoy a firmly embedded drinking culture.
| omnibrain wrote:
| Almost all german Clubs, be it sports clubs or musician
| corps have a "firmly embedded drinking culture". Though
| it's different with the Freiwillige Feuerwehr.
|
| The Freiwillige Feuerwehr is not a club. It's an
| institution of the municipality.
| croes wrote:
| But some volunteer fire brigades have also a club to
| finance the fire brigade through donations and member
| fees. The members of the fire brigade are also members of
| the club, so they are partly paying for their own
| services and equipment.
| kvgr wrote:
| In Czech/Slovak republic the Firemen's Ball is legendary
| once a year ball/party. Also they organize a lot of
| cultural/sport activities in tonw/villages. Drinking is so
| widespread that you don't need to distinguish the the
| voluntary firemen from the rest of the population :)
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Interesting, so that's what the film was based on.
| [deleted]
| 7373737373 wrote:
| Apart from the standard rescue groups, there are dozens of
| different specialist groups which are distributed among the
| chapters in each region[1]: bridge building, electrical supply,
| lighting, communications, infrastructure, food and material
| logistics, search and rescue, oil control, debris clearing,
| demolition, drinking water supply, water rescue, pumps, water
| level monitoring, follow-up care and more!
|
| [1] https://www.thw.de/DE/Einheiten-
| Technik/Fachgruppen/fachgrup... (in german only unfortunately)
|
| Here's a map of all chapters: https://i.imgur.com/m89gQwQ.jpg
| pelasaco wrote:
| Our volunteers are doing what they can, however the Government
| still owes us some answers:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/19/german-village...
|
| "Even though the European Flood Awareness System (Efas) sent out
| specific warnings for the worst-hit German regions four days
| before the start of the downpour, the ensuing flash floods still
| appeared to have taken the majority of residents by surprise."
| martin_a wrote:
| Little known fact (maybe): Emergency services in Germany is
| largely handled by volunteers.
|
| Police is always paid, no volunteers there.
|
| Paramedics are often paid ("Regelrettungsdienst"), but there are
| lots of units working on voluntary basis which take care of
| festivals, larger events and more and are somewhat on stand-by in
| case the Regelrettungsdienst gets overwhelmed with work.
|
| Firefighters are the most and they are almost always volunteers,
| the so called "Freiwillige Feuerwehr". As a member of the
| Freiwillige Feuerwehr you'll have some kind of pager or app to
| alarm you and people will then leave work and rush to the fire
| department and man the trucks. Only large cities (> 100k
| residents, I think) need to have paid firefighters.
|
| Firefighters and Paramedics are also among the jobs with the
| highest trust/respect with the people in Germany. (Sadly, attacks
| on those groups from bystanders are steadily climbing...)
|
| These days thousands of people have left their work (your city
| will pay your employer for the time you had to leave, although
| most employers don't bill that time) to help take care of the
| aftermath of the floods, either as Paramedics or Firefighters.
|
| Usually there's no compensation for this work, next to getting
| something to eat and drink and the equipment.
|
| This is probably quite unique compared to other countries.
|
| Update: Seems like it's not unique to Germany. I appreciate that,
| thanks for letting me know.
| Tomte wrote:
| > Only large cities (> 100k residents, I think) need to have
| paid firefighters.
|
| Depends on the state.
|
| Where I'm living now (Northrhine-Westphalia) we're far below
| 100k, but we have a professional fire brigade.
|
| We also have the volunteer fire brigade.
|
| And one chemical factory has their own fire brigade, which also
| helps out throughout the town whenever something special (i.e.
| chemical) is happening or everyone else is busy.
| martin_a wrote:
| Yes, this also depends heavily on local aspects like
| companies, roads or else.
| AndyPa32 wrote:
| Little known fact: you can be forced to be a `voluntary`
| firefighter - in case there are not enough real volunteers in
| your area.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| What I didn't know for a long time, if a city has no volunteers
| the city can conscrupt random people to firefighting service.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_Fire_Service
| qwertox wrote:
| > Police is always paid, no volunteers there.
|
| Baden-Wuerttemberg does have a voluntary police, but they are
| no longer accepting candidates since 2011.
|
| https://im.baden-wuerttemberg.de/de/sicherheit/polizei/motiv...
|
| > The voluntary police service has existed in Baden-Wurttemberg
| since 1963. It currently consists of 576 (as of June 30, 2020)
| citizens who, through their voluntary work, support the police
| enforcement service in the protection of events and in the area
| of prevention, among other things.
|
| > The police volunteers have the position of a police officer
| within the meaning of the Police Act and therefore generally
| wear uniform. Since they too can come into the position of
| having to protect their own life or the life of another, they
| are equipped with a pistol and other means of coercion.
|
| > The decision of the previous state government in 2011 to
| terminate the voluntary police service is being corrected by
| the incumbent state government.
|
| TIL: Other states do have this as well:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freiwilliger_Polizeidienst
| zaarn wrote:
| Firefighters are loosing trust somewhat because of the culture
| they've grown in the volunteer groups.
|
| I tried to join my local volunteer group a few years ago, to
| help out in my community, was like 12 people back then. Sadly
| after the leader of the group dropped a hard-r N-word followed
| by complaints about certain ethnicities and half the group
| chimed in with "hear hear", I left as quickly as I could.
| weeblewobble wrote:
| volunteer fire brigades are also quite common in (very) small
| towns in the USA. it's a bit like a social club. the fire
| station serves as a sort of public gathering hall as well.
| twic wrote:
| It would be interesting to have a table comparing how this
| works across countries.
|
| In the UK:
|
| - Police are mostly professional, but there are voluntary
| special constables [1]; ~130k professionals, ~10k specials [2]
|
| - Firefighters are kind of all professional; most are full-
| time, but some are "on call", having other jobs, but running
| off to put out fires when needed (and being paid for it) [3].
| On-call firemen are often the only cover in rural areas. About
| 20k full-time, 10k on-call [4].
|
| - Ambulance staff are almost all professional. There are
| volunteers, but a small number [5]. However there is also the
| St John Ambulance, a medical charity that does some ambulance-
| esque things, including providing first aid at public events
| [6]. Air ambulances are completely separate and operated by
| local charities [7] [8], so not available everywhere in the
| country.
|
| - Mountain rescue, cave rescue, and sea rescue are all entirely
| charitable volunteer organisations. Search and rescue
| helicopters used to be provided by the RAF, but are now a
| private service contracted to the coastguard.
|
| - We don't have any equivalent of the THW, as far as i know.
| The fire service do some kind of disaster relief, particularly
| if it involves pumping water. But for the rest of it, there
| just isn't any systematic response.
|
| [1] https://www.met.police.uk/car/careers/met/police-
| volunteer-r...
|
| [2]
| https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
|
| [3] https://oncallfire.uk/wp-content/uploads/On-call-
| firefighter...
|
| [4] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fire-and-rescue-
| wor...
|
| [5] https://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/working-for-
| us/volunteeri...
|
| [6] https://www.sja.org.uk/what-we-do/
|
| [7] https://theairambulanceservice.org.uk/
|
| [8] https://www.londonsairambulance.org.uk/
| jon-wood wrote:
| > We don't have any equivalent of the THW, as far as i know.
| The fire service do some kind of disaster relief,
| particularly if it involves pumping water. But for the rest
| of it, there just isn't any systematic response.
|
| Typically if large scale disaster response is needed the army
| will be called in, when there was flooding in the town I
| lived a while back they turned up to fill and distribute
| sandbags, and worked with the fire brigade to get temporary
| flood defences put up.
| unionpivo wrote:
| Re: firefighters: It's same in Slovenia, and most ex
| Yugoslavia.
|
| We also have similar organizations for mountain rescue, and
| avalanche rescue dogs, divers ...
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| This is organised similarly in the UK. Volunteer "retained
| firefighters" [1] mostly cover rural areas, and full-time crews
| cover towns and cities.
|
| There are also volunteer police officers called "special
| constables" [2]. Mountain rescue is also provided by volunteer
| teams, as is lifeboat maritime rescue, with helicopter support
| from the coast guard (which also uses volunteers...)
|
| Interesting how many countries converge on the same approaches.
|
| [1] https://www.fireservice.co.uk/recruitment/retained-
| firefight...
|
| [2] https://www.college.police.uk/career-learning/career-
| develop...
| prennert wrote:
| Are you aware of any volunteer org in the UK that specializes
| in providing technical support for disaster relief?
|
| I am currently looking of joining a volunteer group to make a
| difference to the community while potentially picking up some
| skills along the way. If I was still in Germany I would have
| joined the THW, but in the UK I have not found an org that
| does the occasional heavy lifting. I considered volunteer
| fire brigade, but I don't think physiology I would be able to
| handle smoke very well, so fire fighting would not be a good
| fit for me. Mountain rescue is alright as a community
| function, but I would miss out on working with heavy
| machinery.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| The only such org I'm aware of is the ham radio group
| Raynet:
|
| https://www.raynet-uk.net/
|
| https://rsgb.org/main/operating/emergency-communications/
| omnibrain wrote:
| > Police is always paid, no volunteers there.
|
| You would think so, but actually there is some sort of
| "Freiwilliger Polizeidienst" in several german states. Though
| only in Baden-Wurttemberg they are part of police proper:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freiwilliger_Polizeidienst
| akudha wrote:
| _attacks on those groups from bystanders are steadily climbing_
|
| Do we know why? I can understand why people might attack the
| cops (not saying it is right), but paramedics? Firefighters?
| These people literally save our lives while putting themselves
| in danger.
|
| This type of attacks is growing in the UK too. According to the
| news, sometimes people deliberately set fire, call 999 and
| attack the firefighters when they arrive. I truly don't
| understand this at all.
| vimy wrote:
| It's mostly immigrants who grew up in Europe with the idea
| that the state is the enemy. Firefighters and paramedics are
| an extension of the state so they are targets. Often they set
| a trash can or something on fire to lure firemen then proceed
| to encircle them from all sides. Throwing rocks and other
| stuff.
| Tepix wrote:
| I haven't heard about that. Source? I've heard stories
| about paramedics being bothered by gazers.
| vimy wrote:
| Some random google results:
| https://www.ledauphine.com/haute-
| savoie/2015/06/24/duingt-un...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta5a02MzWjE
|
| https://sioenapparel.com/en/references/bullet-proof-
| vests-fo... They don't wear bulletproof vests as
| protection against old people.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Firefighters? These people literally save our lives while
| putting themselves in danger.
|
| It is the same in Belgium. In Brussels a few months ago there
| have been several incidents where gang of young people would
| purposely set something on fire (including a nursery:
| thankfully they did it at night when nobody was around) then
| they attack the firefighters once they arrive.
|
| The targets were a nursery, random people's cars and
| firefighters.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| We know why but it would be not politically correct to
| mention it.
| martin_a wrote:
| That's bullshit.
|
| I've often been harassed during my service as a
| firefighter. It's never been by immigrants or else, but by
| "the elders of the village" and people alike who could not
| accept that a road was blocked or we did not want them to
| run around the place where we were currently working.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Sorry, but it's equally bullshit to deny that this is
| happing just because you never experienced it.
|
| Multiple times a year Danish and Swedish media report
| that paramedics and firefighters are attacked by
| immigrants or descendents of immigrants in certain areas.
|
| It's not because they are immigrants, Muslims or have
| brown skins. Something else is going on, but no one cares
| to find out what that might be, because it might cost
| money to fix the issue. Blaming peoples origin or beliefs
| is much easier than fixing a real problem and heaven
| forbid you where to do something that made the life of
| immigrants better, people might not vote for you again.
| martin_a wrote:
| You're right, sorry.
| siva7 wrote:
| please enlighten us, i certainly don't know..
| varjag wrote:
| Some people in Poland, one of the whitest and mono-ethnic
| countries out there in Europe are quite
| racist/xenophobic.
| oaiey wrote:
| I would simply argue: general entitlement. There is no
| respect anymore for anything else than yourself (and in some
| cases not even that). Violence reacting to a denial (e.g.
| step back, do not watch, do not make photos) is just a
| extreme case.
|
| You can see that in anti-vaccers, Karens, lack-of-
| volunteering, lack-of-club-memberships, SUV-driving (I sit
| higher than you so I survive), looting, demolitioning, etc.
| You could further enumerate this.
|
| ps: Please do not see this political, this behavior is
| visible in the whole spectrum of people.
| akudha wrote:
| I am having a hard time believing it is just simple
| entitlement - most people who are anti-vaxxers, anti-
| maskers, verbally abuse waiters, cashiers etc tend to be
| bullies. They tend to just pick people who usually can't
| fight back and run away when their victims do fight back. I
| doubt they'd have the balls to pick a fight with
| firefighters.
|
| It would take a special kind of arsehole to set fire, call
| 911/999, wait for them to come, then physically attack the
| firefighters. There is something else going on here.
| oaiey wrote:
| When you have a nice legal insurance a hit back from a
| firefighter is not a problem.
| cuillevel3 wrote:
| > Firefighters are the most and they are almost always
| volunteers, the so called "Freiwillige Feuerwehr". As a member
| of the Freiwillige Feuerwehr you'll have some kind of pager or
| app to alarm you and people will then leave work and rush to
| the fire department and man the trucks. Only large cities (>
| 100k residents, I think) need to have paid firefighters.
|
| Germany has three kinds of firefighters: volunteer, fulltime
| and conscripted.
|
| I've never heard of conscripted firefighters
| ("Pflichtfeuerwehr"), but apparently it's possible to call upon
| able persons, i.e. if the village is to small and not enough
| volunteers exist.
| accurrent wrote:
| This is actually quite similar to Singapore. Except here
| Conscripts make the majority with full time firefighters
| closely behind. There are a few volunteer firefighters, but
| they are a few. I myself was a conscript, it was a very
| valuable experience. I guess one thing holding back people
| from volunteering is the work culture here. Also in general
| firefighters aren't as well respected (which is kind of
| really sad).
| germanier wrote:
| Usually the mere announcement of such a plan is enough to
| find enough volunteers but there do exist a handful of such
| conscripted firefighter troops. Often this is necessary after
| a mass resignation of volunteers such as in Helsa, Hessia
| this year.
| Akronymus wrote:
| Here in austria we have volunteer, fulltime and company
| firefighters. Altough wikipedia says those exist for germany
| too.
|
| And apparently germany has a "Werkfeuerwehr" too, which is
| different too.
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betriebsfeuerwehr
| Leparamour wrote:
| >Firefighters and Paramedics are also among the jobs with the
| highest trust/respect with the people in Germany. (Sadly,
| attacks on those groups from bystanders are steadily
| climbing...)
|
| I live in an area where this happens somewhat frequently
| (Berlin-Neukolln). The attackers are almost exclusively men of
| Middle Eastern or North African origin. The newspapers and
| media omit this fact in a misguided attempt at not stereotyping
| thereby giving the impression that it's a general societal
| trend when the cause is migrants from Muslim countries and
| archaic understanding of honor - Banlieue culture now all
| across Western Europe and Sweden.
| Xylakant wrote:
| > Only large cities (> 100k residents, I think) need to have
| paid firefighters.
|
| And even those cities often have volunteer firefighter
| departments. Berlin has multiple, roughly one per district.
| martin_a wrote:
| Volunteer firefighters in cities are often used to fill up
| the rows of the paid ones or to relieve them, so they can
| return to standing by for the next alarm and ensure short
| reaction times.
|
| That's at least how it works in the city where my brother is
| working as a firefighter and I think it's comparable all over
| Germany.
| enriquto wrote:
| > Sadly, attacks on those groups from bystanders are steadily
| climbing...
|
| How is that? What kind of idiot would attack firefighters or
| paramedics?
| cbmuser wrote:
| You can actually be drafted as a firefighter in Germany if they
| don't find enough volunteers.
|
| Also, larger cities have professional fire fighters, of course,
| volunteer firefighters are more a rural thing.
| odiroot wrote:
| > This is probably quite unique compared to other countries.
|
| Nope. Same thing exists in Poland, and from what I've heard
| even in some non-European countries.
| [deleted]
| Bayart wrote:
| AFAIK volunteer firefighting is the rule everywhere in Europe.
| In France we have volunteers, professionals and military
| firemen (with more specialized / intensive tasks).
|
| We have reserves of volunteers for emergency health care and so
| on (for example they're being used for vaccination right now),
| working on the same principles as the ones you have described.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > AFAIK volunteer firefighting is the rule everywhere in
| Europe.
|
| I've got a friend who's an occasional firefighter in Belgium,
| in addition to his regular job. He's not an unpaid volunteer:
| I don't know how it works exactly regarding the pay but I
| know that once he'll reach the age where he'll stop working,
| he'll get two monthly pensions paid (the regular one + one
| because he was a firefighter).
| Bayart wrote:
| In France they get paid hourly rates, with +50% for Sundays
| and holidays and +100% for nights.
| masklinn wrote:
| Of note: they're not paid, they're compensated.
|
| Which is why only officers have a base comp' above the
| minimum legal salary, the lowest rank gets 8.08 (euros)
| (the minimum legal salary is 10.25), but it's tax-free.
|
| And that's on active duty (which doesn't necessarily mean
| on-site, it might be training or admin or whatever), when
| on-call it's generally half-that (legally anyway, some
| places give volunteers more).
| martin_a wrote:
| Ah, interesting. I only knew that in France firemen are part
| of the military, I thought it was that way all over France.
| Bayart wrote:
| About 5% of the firemen in France are part of the military.
| The most well known being those of Paris and Marseille.
| martin_a wrote:
| Possibly I'm biased by a former French firefighter who
| lives a few houses away and likes to tell stories from
| his service. He was with the military firefighters...
| iagovar wrote:
| AFAIK in Spain is all professional. We do have an emergencies
| military unit too (UME - Unidad Militar de Emergencias) which
| does mostly firefighting and disaster relief. The military
| also can build hospitals and such, and it happened under the
| pandemic, but it's not the UME but something else.
|
| Small municipalities pool their resources, at least around my
| area.
|
| The only voluntary service we have is the Red Cross and
| Proteccion Civil.
|
| I'm not 100% sure on this, but professional emergency
| services are definitely common.
| brnt wrote:
| > This is probably quite unique compared to other countries.
|
| It works like this in many European countries. When I went to
| work in Germany and was introduced to the work council as
| something uniquely German, it was cute too. Good to see my
| native country isn't the only place that thinks it's a special
| snowflake though.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Someone writes a longer comment to share interesting
| information. You personally attack them, why? Is this leading
| to more understanding in the world? On top you try to make
| Germans look clueless. What for? Is this what HN is for?
| squiggleblaz wrote:
| Honestly I don't think that was the effect of the comment.
| The comment seemed to show that every country is a little
| bit the same - we all think we have our unique problems and
| our unique institutions, but in reality we're all humans
| and thinks are a bit the same everywhere.
|
| I think they could have expressed their observations in a
| nicer way. I don't think you need to collapse into
| ontological angst either.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| the special thing about German works council (Betriebsrat) is
| that for companies above a specific size 50% of board seats
| go to people elected by the council. Not the owners.
| Semaphor wrote:
| As far as I know, the somewhat uniquely German thing about
| works councils is the power they have and how strongly
| protected their creation is. But honestly, it's often hard to
| keep track of what rights are EU given and which ones are
| local.
| k__ wrote:
| Aren't workers coucils the Betriebsrat?
|
| Unions are more like political parties and workers coucil
| are more like parts of the government you can get elected
| to.
| Semaphor wrote:
| You are almost completely right, I deleted that part from
| my comment. Turns out, it's very important to distinguish
| between Workers' council [0] and Works council [1] :D
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_council
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council
| k__ wrote:
| lol, good to know.
|
| Thanks for the heads up :D
| arethuza wrote:
| A couple of examples from the UK that I am familiar with of
| charitable organisations who provide completely awesome
| services:
|
| https://www.scottishmountainrescue.org/
|
| https://rnli.org/
|
| I'm sure there are many more in the UK and other countries.
| Carnageous wrote:
| Maybe nice to note: Even in cities where there are paid
| firefighters, there are almost always still more voluntary
| firefighters that respond mostly during night times if there is
| a demand for them.
| yunohn wrote:
| Does anyone know why this is the case? Genuinely curious.
|
| One would imagine the high tax rates in such EU countries can
| afford to have paid disaster relief troops.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| It's just prohibitively expensive to pay a lot of people full
| time who for long periods of time do nothing. Even if it's
| just part time, it can be quite expensive. Especially when
| you want to pay of other things like welfare too.
|
| E.g. if you're a smallish village (say <1000 people), you
| cannot afford to pay a living wage to the 10 people or so you
| will need at least to fight a good sized fire, especially if
| a fire too big for a regular fire extinguisher happens once
| every few years.
|
| You could of course pay those 10 people to look after a bunch
| of villages at the same time, but then you get a lot of
| fighting about where they will be actually located, etc.
|
| In larger cities or on factory grounds it makes sense of
| course to keep a permanent paid staff because "enough" bad
| things keep happening, and especially with certain kinds of
| factories you want expert firefighters specially trained for
| certain types of events (like large scale chemical fires).
|
| In a lot of smaller places the community also wants to keep
| volunteer fire fighters, as they are basically the only
| "community thing" happening at all, especially since churches
| and church activities become less and less popular.
|
| Volunteer fire fighters are a tradition.
|
| It's rather common around where I live that each village of
| more than a few houses does an "Easter Fire"[1] event once a
| year (of course), and those things are quite commonly
| organized by the volunteer firefighters who then use the
| profits from selling beer and food to fund their group's fun
| activities over the year, be it buying beer, soda and snacks
| for their regular meetings, be it a foosball table, and minor
| things like that. And that Easter Fire event often times
| really is the only major event happening at all during the
| year in that village.
|
| Other volunteer organizations like the THW (mostly disaster
| relifef) or the DLRG (volunteer-ish life guards) are
| considered important for community building as well. And it's
| always good to have a lot of people around who at least have
| basic training in these kinds of things should the far fewer
| paid professionals be overwhelmed in case of major disasters
| like the flooding right now.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Fire
| yunohn wrote:
| I understand the supply-demand problem, of course disasters
| are rare and few in number in remote areas.
|
| To rephrase, why can't the gov actually pay the volunteers?
| It seems weird that they are given snacks and water, in
| exchange for dangerous labor.
| fnomnom wrote:
| well they kind of do.
|
| if you are employed and a volunteer firefighter your
| company has to let you go if an emergency breaks out AND
| they have to continue paying you. so you keep your normal
| wages during your service times.
|
| then they can claim (varying in exact detail from state
| to state) these costs and get money from the goverment
| yunohn wrote:
| Honestly, this is just as bad as not paying, IMHO.
|
| Why do people working in extenuating circumstances,
| providing disaster relief that is crucial to society, not
| get paid? Continuing to get your normal wages is the bare
| minimum. Companies benefit from restoring society,
| otherwise, they can forget about business continuity.
|
| Seems to me that the people are being exploited. I guess
| this has worked historically, so locals don't see
| anything wrong with it. But as an outsider, it's super
| weird.
| gpvos wrote:
| Is it different elsewhere then?
|
| In the Netherlands, about 15% of firefighters are paid; in
| most other European countries I know of it's less.
| squiggleblaz wrote:
| I think it's not so different than Australia.
|
| I suppose the SES (State Emergency Service) is the equivalent
| of the THW, even to the point of being set up at about the same
| time to help in case of a war but dealing with natural
| disasters and other incidents that are less dramatic. THW is
| federal but SES is state, but I'm sure that's trivial.
|
| Police are of course paid.
|
| Paramedics who ride in ambulances attending emergecies are paid
| - perhaps not enough. But first aid at festivals and larger
| events are handled by organisations like St Johns Ambulance,
| which are mostly volunteer-based organisations. It sounds like
| perhaps it is structurally different, but has the same effect.
|
| Firefighters are divided. Metropolitan firies are usually paid,
| but in country towns they are volunteer.
|
| I have noticed many similarities between Australia and Germany
| that seem surprising. Perhaps this is another one to add to
| that. Maybe it isn't so surprising though. It would seem like
| every country town couldn't have its own firefighting force if
| they have only very rare fires or if they are particularly
| seasonal.
| wil421 wrote:
| It's the same in the US. Most larger cities have paid
| firefighters but a lot of smaller ones and volunteer.
|
| We also have the Cajun Navy in the Southeast who will help
| around the Gulf states after Hurricanes. They are mainly
| small boat owners who will aid in rescuing people stuck in
| their houses.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajun_Navy
| prennert wrote:
| The THW is organised similar to an army and has equipment to
| restore infrastructure in the event of a catastrophe (natural
| or man-made) and to build temporary protections if required.
| Similar to pioneers they can provide quick temporal solutions
| for power, communications (including telecoms and bridges)
| and water. They have a very heavy focus on technical
| solutions and can only provide basic medical assistance. The
| idea is that the THW restores access to cut-off areas for
| emergency services and provides protection to prevent the
| situation deteriorating. Other services use this
| infrastructure to provide medical and light technical
| assistance, etc.
|
| I am struggling to find references at the moment, but from
| what I remember, due to the history of putsches etc, in
| Germany the army could for a long time not be deployed
| internally. So while in other countries the actual army
| pioneers would be called in to clear roads after a flood,
| this was not possible in Germany. So the solution was to
| build a civil version of this, which as a side-effect was
| actually completely independent of the armed forces. Since
| the army cannot use these capabilities offensively, this
| structure helps calming twitchy neighbours after starting two
| world wars in a row. It is one of many examples of
| decentralisation of powers and capabilities in post WWII
| Germany.
|
| The lines between different volunteer forces and structures
| are probably converging globally and most countries have
| similar capabilities available within their volunteers.
| Looking up the SES, it seems to be doing a lot of things
| including heavy lifting and rescuing people from cars
| crashes. The very specialised THW would only do the first,
| and (volunteer?) fire services do the second. If that is
| worth the distinction (and this post), I dont know. But it
| probably leads to the THW volunteers having much pride in
| being called in when the equipment of the fire service is not
| good enough, while seeing very little action and have
| therefore a lot of time to support the local brewer.
| lorenzhs wrote:
| Nitpick: THW has the capabilities (hydraulic spreaders and
| cutters) and trains for vehicle extrication, but it's true
| that the fire department usually handles these situations
| because they are far quicker to arrive. Since vehicle
| extrication is usually rather time-critical due to the
| injuries that are to be expected in such accidents, and the
| fire department has more experience with it, THW rarely
| does it. Some local chapters do on-call Autobahn shifts
| (Technische Hilfe auf Verkehrswegen), maybe there?
| chefkoch wrote:
| I think a main difference is, when the army is deployed
| internally it is never in charge. It is only a supporting
| role for the civil services.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| How do these volunteers get to their station, suited, and on
| the way in time for an emergency? Seems to me that a fire
| crew would be at work in different parts of the city and
| could take precious time to get equipped and on the way.
|
| There are volunteer crews here in Canada, but they are almost
| exclusively for smaller towns less than 10k. Not much
| distance to travel to their station, however a house on my
| street burned pretty much to the ground waiting for the
| volunteer crew to arrive.
| foepys wrote:
| While most paid firefighters have to be out the door in 60
| seconds, voluntary firefighters usually have 10 minutes to
| do the same. That's a trade-off that has to be made since
| not every small town can pay for a fully manned 24/7 fire
| station, especially when there are maybe 10 alarms per
| month. Some don't even average 1 alarm per month.
|
| The trick to compensate for that is volume. As many
| stations as possible with only a few vehicles (mostly a
| single very large truck with 2000 litres of water), so ways
| are short. Only when something bigger happens, multiple
| stations will be alerted. Some stations also specialize by
| having a ladder truck, a hazmat truck, etc.
|
| Volunteers should not be 10 minutes or more away from the
| station when on call. They can also cross on red in their
| private vehicle when alerted.
| londons_explore wrote:
| When a house is on fire badly enough to require the fire
| brigade, it's probably a write-off anyway. Even if the fire
| is put out promptly, the smoke and water damage will mean
| every room will need full remodelling, and the roof
| probably needs replacing. At that point, the cost isn't so
| different to just knocking it down and building again.
|
| The main benefit the fire brigade offers is the ability to
| prevent spread to other buildings, and assist people
| escaping.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| If the crew is so late to the scene that the house has
| essentially burned down:
|
| 1) Anyone trapped may end up dying or being severely
| injured 2) Fire spreads to neighbours (in the case I
| described the owners and neighbours were hosing down the
| next door house at their own risk.
| [deleted]
| ben_bai wrote:
| Yes, sounds exactly like it is here in Germany.
|
| And in non-disaster times those voluntary organisations do
| like to put on gatherings and have a beer or 10... I guess
| you can add that to the list, too.
| chefkoch wrote:
| Just to add one point, one perc you got for joining the THW or
| beeing a firefighter was that you didn't have to do the
| military service at the time it was still compulsory. Now
| without that many that rely on volunteers struggle to find
| enough Young people.
| cbmuser wrote:
| Compulsory military service actually has not been abandoned
| in Germany, it's still written down in the constitution.
|
| It's just put out of order for an indefinite amount of time.
| martin_a wrote:
| Absolutely, yes.
|
| Firefighters start around the age of 10 in Germany, where you
| compete with soccer clubs and other sports, later on, during
| puberty, people often lose interest, too...
|
| It's not that easy to keep young people, but I find that more
| and more "older" people (like around 30) start with the
| firefighters because they want to take part in the life in
| their village and what not. So, there's hope.
| hnbad wrote:
| Volunteering in rescue services (DLRG is another one that
| is particularly relevant in this disaster, and the German
| Red Cross (DRK) is another big one) is generally a great
| way to go out and meet people to be honest. I neither have
| the time nor physical fitness for it but I know some
| volunteers and they certainly know how to have a good time.
|
| I think volunteering is also more common in rural areas. A
| lot of times volunteer trainings are done as youth
| activities (e.g. the DLRG does a lot of swimming related
| activities so it's a good option if you enjoy swimming as a
| sport).
| maga wrote:
| > It's not that easy to keep young people, but I find that
| more and more "older" people (like around 30) start with
| the firefighters because they want to take part in the life
| in their village and what not. So, there's hope.
|
| With a long life of "tech nomading" I'm pretty comfortable
| living alone and in strange environments. But the older I
| get the more I feel unfulfilled due to lack of real
| community around, contributing to it, taking ownership and
| responsibility in it. I guess that happens to those 30 year
| olds in Germany as well.
| chefkoch wrote:
| While moving around is getting more common, i think it's
| still way less than in US Tech. Also the distances are so
| much smaller munich - hamburg is only 6 hours.
| martin_a wrote:
| But "rural" Germany with its village structures are
| harder to penetrate if you move to a town, probably.
|
| So either you join the sports club or the firefighters to
| find your place in the new town. ;-)
| chefkoch wrote:
| And your going to be the new guy for the rest of your
| live.
| WJW wrote:
| My favorite "Americans vs Europeans" joke:
|
| Q: What's the difference between an American and a
| European person?
|
| A: A European thinks 100 km is a large distance. An
| American thinks a hundred years is a long time.
|
| I definitely qualify as a European in this regard; "only
| 6 hours" is super long to travel for me.
| mynameisash wrote:
| I like that one a lot. My other favorite (as an American)
| is:
|
| Q: What do you call a person who speaks two languages?
|
| A: Bilingual
|
| Q: What do you call a person who speaks one language?
|
| A: American
| chefkoch wrote:
| I recently read it takes around 12 hours just to drive
| through Texas, the same time it takes to drive from
| Munich to Barcelona.
| imarid wrote:
| It isnt unique, in Poland there is also bunch of volunteer fire
| departments, much more than fire departments with regular
| salary.
| https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochotnicza_stra%C5%BC_po%C5%...
| weinzierl wrote:
| Here are a few additional points to give more context how this
| volunteering is organized in Germany:
|
| 1. Employers have to allow their employees to participate in
| aid missions and also have to pay them for the time they spend
| volunteering in an emergency. Employers can get the paid wages
| back from the respective authority.
|
| 2. In my experience the mentioned organizations are often youth
| organizations similar to sports clubs and are doing a lot of
| social work apart from emergency, rescue and disaster missions.
|
| 3. Historically it wasn't completely voluntary. When I was
| young every male citizen had to pay a fee if they didn't
| participate. This was abolished eventually, because of gender
| equality. Also, compulsory military service (when we still had
| it) could be avoided by volunteering at least four years in
| disaster relief.
| cbmuser wrote:
| You can still get drafted as a fire fighter if they don't
| find enough volunteers.
|
| Also, the German constitution still forbids military drafting
| of women (Artikel 12a, (4), GG), so there isn't a true gender
| equality in Germany.
| aussiegreenie wrote:
| Volunteers always outnumber paid emergency workers. This the case
| in most countries. In Australia, the volunteers from the State
| Emergency Service and the Rural Fire Service would be about
| 70-80% of all personnel for emergencies.
|
| In fact, you have to pay for most of your own safety equipment.
| One of the weirder things is the most effective logistics support
| comes from people from the Sikh religion. If there is a fire,
| flood or any problem Turbans 4 Australia are onsite cooking
| vegetarian food for anyone who needs it, victims, police, SES and
| firefighters.T4A not only does not get paid but they pay for all
| the food.
| croes wrote:
| Another example that humans are not all about profit. Little
| known fact, if there aren't enough volunteers for the voluntary
| fire brigade then citizens could be forced to do the service.
| erk__ wrote:
| We have something similar in Denmark which is a agency under the
| defence ministry. Though compared to THW they are only around 1/3
| volunteers, 1/3 conscripts not wanting to be in the military and
| the rest is normal payroll staff. They also man the big pumps
| when it is needed and such here.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Emergency_Management_Ag...
| Xylakant wrote:
| When Germany still had mandatory military service, volunteering
| in the THW or firefighters for at least 10 years counted as
| having served.
| yetanother-1 wrote:
| I think you meant 10 months.
| usrusr wrote:
| As others have already answered, no. You may think of it,
| in military terms, as straight to reservist state.
| Tomte wrote:
| I think it was 4 years in the end, but it was probably
| longer in earlier years (since the mandatory service was
| repeatedly shortened over the decades).
|
| https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__13a.html
| est31 wrote:
| Yeah it was reduced from 6 to 4 years in Dec 2010.
|
| https://www.buzer.de/gesetz/5521/al25428-0.htm
|
| Shortly after, in July 2011, the requirement for
| Wehrdienst was dropped altogether. Can't access older
| versions but there has been a history of reductions in
| lengths for the "normal" Wehrpflicht, so it probably
| followed suit: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrpflicht_
| in_Deutschland#Bun...
| wink wrote:
| Pretty sure it was 7 years when I was drafted and it's
| the reason I didn't want to commit, but preferred to
| "waste" the 9 months in one bloc.
| Xylakant wrote:
| I'm fairly certain it was 10 when I was drafted, but
| draft was at least 11 month back then and civil service
| at least 13.
|
| The biggest issue wasn't the 10 years requirement but
| rather that when you somehow couldn't fulfill it (moving
| or such), the time would reset and might be wasted.
| gmueckl wrote:
| Back when I was presented with that choice, I was
| entertaining it briefly. But I knew that I would move
| away to go to university. That, and the fact that 7 years
| seem like a very long time when you're 18 made me decide
| against it.
| corty wrote:
| No, 10 years, but only for regular weekend exercises (5
| times a year or so) plus being on call for emergencies.
| Whereas military service or other civil service (typically
| helping in some hospital or care facility) was a 8 to 24
| month block of duty, just like any other care worker or
| soldier.
|
| THW was seen as the really easy way out of the draft (if
| you could get a spot), because emergencies were rare and
| weekend exercises were "easy". Informally THW stood for
| "Trinken, Helfen, Weitertrinken", "Drinking, Helping,
| Continued Drinking".
| saberdancer wrote:
| What I feel makes it confusing is that it is not clear
| how you can have 10 years of volunteer firefighting at
| the age when you are eligible for mandatory military
| service.
|
| I believe that the other commenters said that you could
| "commit" to being a volunteer for 10 years and thus could
| avoid mandatory military service. This is the part that
| was not clear.
| corty wrote:
| How it worked was: you got mustered for the draft at 17
| or 18, and depending on whether you finished school you
| got your draft notice between 18 and 20. At any point you
| could declare being a conscientious objector and apply
| for a spot at THW, firefighters or some care org. Spots
| at THW and firefighters were rare and sought after, and
| especially during the cold war you only got them through
| connections or with special reasons (important job you
| couldn't interrupt for en-bloc service). You also
| couldn't just apply to any village fire brigade because
| there was a mandatory number of exercises and trainings
| many of them couldn't provide. When you got accepted for
| a fire brigade or THW, you went to trainings and
| exercises. Every few months you had to report signed
| confirmations of those trainings and exercises. If you
| failed to report in time and sufficient number, because
| you didn't care, were unable, got thrown out, you could
| be drafted for military or civil en-bloc service after
| all.
| k__ wrote:
| It wasn't that simple.
|
| There was military service, which was the shortest.
|
| The there was civil service which was longer.
|
| Then there was disaster relive service which was even
| longer. But you only had to train every other weekend or so
| and help at disasters and not do it full time in one swing.
| oaiey wrote:
| It was a higher years number. But when you are a dedicated
| firefighter (and most are), 10 years are just the beginning
| of your service. So the people who avoided military
| subscription by that made a good deal actually.
|
| When I remember right, 3-4 out of my class avoided
| subscription like that (many on other ways).
| fgeiger wrote:
| The same was true for volunteer firefighters (although I
| vaguely remember that it was less than 10 years).
| twic wrote:
| > The primary firefighting work in Denmark are done by
| municipal fire departments and all municipalities are required
| by law to have a fire department. [...] The municipalities does
| not have to do the firefighting themselves, and a large part of
| the fire department services are done by the private firm Falck
| A/S.
|
| > The company was founded in 1906 by Sophus Falck after he
| witnessed and volunteered at a fire at the Christiansborg
| Palace in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1884. The lack of
| organization made a big impression on him, and motivated the
| creation of Falck later on in 1906. His mission was to help
| others in emergency situations. [...] Falck funds its
| acquisitions and capital expenditures out of its own operating
| cash flows. The majority of the company is owned by two Nordic-
| based nonprofit foundations: Lundbeck, a global pharmaceutical
| company, and the KIRKBI Group, a 75% holder of The Lego Group.
|
| This is all deeply strange to Anglo-Saxon eyes!
|
| So, a lot of fire services (and ambulance services), are
| outsourced to a private organisation, but that private
| organisation is itself sort of a public service organisation,
| and is owned by two charitable trusts. The Lundbeck Foundation
| inherited Hans Lundbeck's share of his pharmaceutical company,
| so very like the Wellcome Trust in the UK, and KIRKBI was
| founded by the current head of the Lego clan.
|
| To what extent is this just for-profit privatisation, as we
| know in English-speaking countries, and to what extent is this
| some strange intermingling of private structures and public
| service?
| squiggleblaz wrote:
| > This is all deeply strange to Anglo-Saxon eyes! ...
| English-speaking countries
|
| Is it though? Is it so different than public hospitals and
| schools owned by the Catholic church? I think there are even
| hospitals that are half public and half private.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It sounds like not-for-profit privatisation?
|
| I think there used to be a lot more of this in the UK, but
| the postwar settlement involved nationalizing almost all of
| it, including all the volunteer organizations that popped up
| during the war. E.g. the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_Fire_Service
| erk__ wrote:
| I think most major areas have their own public firebrigrade,
| if I remember correctly Falck will manage the smaller
| firestations though they are still manned by large with
| volunteers.
| Erwin wrote:
| Several of the well-known Danish brand companies have a
| significant part of them owned by a foundation. Novo
| (infamous for high insulin prices in US!) has 28% of it owned
| by a foundation, with assets of $65B. Similar with Maersk,
| Lundbeck, Carlsberg, LEGO and even the window-maker Velux: ht
| tps://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_over_danske_fonde_efter_...
| martinmunk wrote:
| Practically no-one is conscripted any more. There is usually
| 1-2 year wait list to go in and spend 9 months before Uni and
| the like.
|
| I'm one of those volunteers in "DEMA". It varies by region how
| and how much the volunteers are used. I usually respond to the
| oddball police ect. support if my SWE job allows, but try to
| focus on our international capacities. USAR, ICT/camp/water-
| purification support for EU/UN management teams, satellite
| internet ect. My colleges ran a camp in Sierra Leone wrt.
| ebola, went to US Virgin Islands after the storm, I went to
| Sweden to fight forest fires and stuff like that.
|
| I have friends and family ask why I spend the time, not just on
| calls, but education, gear maintenance and the like instead of
| focusing even more on my career and day job. The answer isn't
| rational, but it just gives me experiences I wouldn't get any
| other way. I grew up learning to inherently help people if
| asked to without question and probably wouldn't be doing it if
| it wasn't helping others. But at least when I need to justify
| it to my conscious self, I circle back to the egoistic view of
| how it benefits me as well.
|
| Fun fact, the closer you get to Germany in the southern part of
| mainland Denmark, the closer the local fire departments start
| to look like the German "Freiwillige Feuerwehr". The culture
| there is just much more "everybody in the area that can,
| responds to the alarm".
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