Vigili del Fuoco

The fire brigade in Italy (Italian vigili del Fuoco, dt " fire guard" ) is accessible throughout Italy via the emergency number 115. Forest fires (Italian incendio ) should be reported to the Corpo Forestale dello Stato immediately of the nationwide emergency number 1515.

Organization

The responsibility of the fire service is regulated in Italy with a few exceptions by national laws. Italy has a national fire service, the Corpo Nazionale dei vigili del Fuoco, which consists of full-time and volunteer firefighters. It reports to the Department for Firefighting, rescue and civil defense ( Dipartimento dei vigili del Fuoco del Soccorso Pubblico e della Difesa Civile ) of the Interior Ministry in Rome. Leading the eight departments of the Dipartimento and organize all aspects of the Italian Fire Brigade, which has about 32,000 full-time employees. There are so-called coordination inspectorates at regional level. The most important local organ of the Italian Fire Brigade is the fire command in the provinces, which also acts as a control center. The province commands are under the fire stations, of which were commissioned in recent years, especially in northern Italy, more and more the responsibility of voluntary firefighters. Volunteer firefighters are used in Italy as a gain at fire stations, which have only full-time staff in the normal case. In several rural areas of Italy, the network of fire stations is not very closely. There, the Corpo Forestale dello Stato ( Forest Service ) takes over in many cases the tasks of the fire, especially when it comes to fighting forest fires. In many communities, the local technical service ( servizio tecnico Comunale ) also has certain fire-fighting capacity. The port and airport fire brigades are part of the national fire service and are subject to the territorially competent Province command.

Until 2005, military service could be served at the Italian national fire service. Following the suspension of conscription, the Italian Office of Civilian Service introduced the possibility (for now voluntary one-year military service analog) abzuleisten a voluntary one-year community service at the fire department. There are also other forms of voluntary work at the fire department.

The fire departments in South Tyrol, Trentino and Valle d'Aosta are independent organizations. The fire department in South Tyrol and Trentino based in contrast to the rest of Italy almost exclusively on volunteer fire departments.

Training

The training system is under the central training department in Rome. There is a higher fire school, a national training center and special schools for the training of pilots and divers as well as a sports center. The regional inspectorates supervise the training at the level of regions and provinces. You supervise the fire brigade schools in Varallo Sesia (Piedmont), Dalmine ( Lombardy ), Bologna (Emilia -Romagna), Senigallia (Marche), Terni (Umbria ), Naples (Campania ), Bari ( Apulia) and Lamezia Terme (Calabria ). The provincial commands also have training facilities that offer numerous courses.

History

Immediately after the unification of Italy, there were at the local level fire service organizations ( pompieri ) of widely varying quality. As a rule, these were to volunteer fire departments that were established at the local level, in part by medieval pattern. Numerous local and whole regions possessed in the 1860s had no organized fire department. Only in 1935 was a law (No. 2472, October 10, 1935) created a national legal basis for firefighting and set up the appropriate departments at the national level and in the provinces. This was a national coordination Inspectorate in the Ministry of Interior and to initially independent province fire departments. These brigades consisted of permanent staff ( fire brigade ) and volunteer firefighters ( volunteer fire department ) who were registered in the corresponding lists and alerts when necessary and could be used for service. In this system, it was however not separate volunteer fire departments in the accepted sense, but Voluntary gains of the professional fire brigade.

In 1939, the Corpo Nazionale dei vigili del Fuoco, whereby central educational institutions were created. A law of December 27, 1941 repealed all previous provisions on the fire department and created in this area an entirely new legal framework, which is essentially to this day. A newly created in 1950 legal regime made ​​it possible to collect conscripts at the request of the fire department to address the increasing needs in this area. By this measure, we also created a trained staff Stock for emergencies. 1961 lifted one on the last powers of the provinces at the fire department, creating a purely national civil organization was created. One of the key departments in the Ministry of Interior and at the provincial level departments were also at the regional level that have special facilities and units that support when needed, the province commands. The Italian fire service also set up helicopter squadrons and procured fireboats. The old fire department of the Interior Ministry was expanded in 1970 to include the areas civil defense (now the Office of the Prime Minister, Dipartimento della Protezione Civile ) and civil defense.

The fire department is since 1992 the backbone of the Italian Civil Protection. This is not a distinct permanent civil protection body, but rather a system that combines all civil defense resources at the level of municipalities, provinces, regions and the state under the principle of subsidiarity and brings accordingly when needed for use. At the national level, the Italian Army, the Italian Red Cross and the Italian police are next to the fire department and a part of the civil defense system in which numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs ) are involved with their volunteers. In contrast to the German-speaking countries, the voluntary commitment in Italy mainly concentrated in civil protection and less at the fire department. Voluntary Civil Protection Volunteers are usually trained by the NGOs ( often also of the fire station) used and, with the co-ordination lies with the bodies of the civil defense. Overall, about 1.3 million volunteers are currently registered with the Civil Defence, of which 60,000 are employed in a very short time, another 300,000 within a few hours.

In recent years, it has been suggested occasionally to shift both the fire department and the Corpo Forestale dello Stato in the competence of the Italian regions. In this respect, however, attempts at reform were stifled by the members or the lobby groups of the fire department and the CFS in the bud because they do not want to give up their "corporate identity" and various other privileges. In official statements you gave to again and again that regionalization would lead to deterioration or to increases in the cost of training. Also, procurement and logistics were to organize on a national scale efficiently and cost effectively. For major emergencies and disasters, a national organization was also convenient.

2013 took over the national fire brigade fire fighting aircraft Canadair CL -415, which had previously part of the Italian civil protection.

Museum

The Italian fire department maintains three fire museums. The Museum in Rome Ostinense ( Via Marmorata 15) is particularly concerned with the history of the fire service in the Roman Empire and in the city of Rome as well as some special units of the modern fire service ( divers, aviators, cave rescue ). Another museum is located in Mantua. Several fire stations have smaller exhibitions, one of which has been acquired in Chiavenna in Lombardy national importance.

Ranks

The values ​​given herein Ranks and insignia find basically in professional firefighters application. The volunteers use only a portion of these ranks, the corresponding badge will be supplemented by the addition volontario. For the German equivalents of both the ranks of the volunteers, as well as the professional fire must be used in this context.

The following overview is a simplified comparative presentation. The various categories of Italy and the German-speaking countries have differences. For a detailed discussion of these differences, we refer to the article ranks the Italian police forces. Introduced in February 2012, new rank insignia of the Italian fire brigade are based on those of the Italian civil police forces. The fire department has its own civil service grade designations.