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The Brunswick Fire Department Service
Center as an example of innovative
total solutions and partnership in fire
prevention.
Budgetary constraints are increasingly forcing
towns and municipalities to adopt a
more business-oriented mentality, opening
up opportunities for innovative forms of
cooperation with private enterprises. In
the city of Brunswick, a partnership has
been established which to date is unique
in Germany, with Dräger Safety helping
Brunswick Fire Department to perform its
duties. The company planned, built and
financed Brunswick's new Fire Department
Service Center (FSC), underlining with this
pioneering achievement its role as a provider
of total problem solutions.
In addition, Dräger Safety is enabling the
city of Brunswick to refinance its investment
through the cooperation agreement.
At the beginning, in the year 2000, it was
clear that the financial resources available
would not stretch to a new fire station in
the south of the city with the necessary infrastructure.
The new station would require
a hose cleaning facility, a workshop for the
servicing, care and maintenance of respiratory
protective and gas detection equipment,
and a training center. “The city’s officials
had decreed that no new debts were
allowed, and that no loans could be taken
out”, explains Carl-Heinz Beykuffer, Administrative
Director of Brunswick Professional
Fire Department. Chief Fire Officer Hans-
Joachim Gressmann adds: “However, since
the infrastructure of our main fire station
dates back to the post-war years, something
really needed to be done. So we
asked ourselves what other ways there
might be to finance the urgently needed
fire department service center.”
Both started putting out feelers in the
private economy, holding informal talks
with a number of potential partners—among
them Dräger Safety—to establish whether
there was any general interest and, if so,
what solutions industry could propose. They
succeeded in persuading the city to invite
nationwide tenders for the construction
and operation of a fire department service
center. As Hans-Joachim Gressmann says:
“We were pleased that Dräger Safety
submitted a bid, as we had noticed the
company’s willingness even during the early
idea-gathering stages to try to find an
innovative solution to our problem.” Dräger
Safety got through the qualifying rounds,
and submitted a persuasive concept which
provided a good basis for further talks. The
city began negotiations with the Lübeck
firm, the outcome of which was a model
that would prove profitable to both parties:
Dräger Safety was to contribute the financial
resources needed to build the center,
and would take overall responsibility for
construction. In addition, Dräger Safety
would be responsible for the servicing and
maintenance of the center for the contractually
agreed upon term of 15 years, and for
training personnel in the FSC. The center
itself was to be used by the City of Brunswick
Fire Department on the basis of a hire
purchase scheme.
The FSC gives Brunswick Professional
Fire Department and the city’s 30 local fire
departments a respiratory protection workshop
and modern hose cleaning facility.
In addition, a respiratory protection training
gallery, a flashover container and training
facilities for firefighters are available. |
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When the Fire Department Service Center
was officially handed over, Brunswick’s
Mayor Friederike Harlfinger paid tribute to
the pioneering spirit of the Lübeck company:
“In Dräger Safety from Lübeck we
found a partner who is not only a worldrenowned
company in the field of safety
technology, but also fulfilled all our expectations,
even in the difficult initial phase
of the project. While contracts were being
drawn up, it was already evident that
Dräger Safety was prepared to work
together with the city to develop new
approaches and concepts and to take a
fresh look at familiar ground and come
up with new ideas and solutions, both for
the city and for the company itself.” Gerd
Zeisler, Dräger Safety Regional Manager,
underlines this by saying: “What we are witnessing here is a pioneering achievement
which for the first time combines the
interests and needs of the public sector in
the fire department segment with those of
a private-sector company, giving rise to a
profitable situation for both partners. This
configuration was completely virgin territory
for us, and there were no examples of any
similar problem solutions in Germany upon
which to base our work.”
Infrastructure of the FSC
The infrastructure of the FSC includes the
following:
- Respiratory protection workshop with
equipment storage area, for care and
servicing of the respiratory protective
and gas detection equipment of the fire
departments, industrial firms and rescue
organizations
- Modern respiratory protection training
gallery with neighboring exercise and
fitness area
- Flashover container in which firefighters
can train their response to fire under
realistic conditions while wearing
respirators
- Modern hose cleaning facility with hose
storage area
The new Dräger respiratory protection
training gallery has a lot more to offer than
the old one at the main fire station. Firefighters
are subjected to real stress and
their physical and psychological limits are
tested in preparation for real-life situations.
Wearing respirators, they have to find their
way through a maze of tunnels, pipes and
slopes, testing their ability to cope in conditions
of darkness, heat, smoke and noise.
They are monitored from a control panel throughout the exercise by means of
contact sensors and an infrared camera.
Things get pretty hot in the flashover container
from Dräger Safety: instead of a
simulation, the different stages of a real fire
in a confined space can be experienced at
first hand. At temperatures of over 300 °C
and in conditions of thick smoke, the firefighters
in the container see for themselves
how a flashover develops and learn under
controlled conditions how to respond correctly
in such situations. In the exercise and
fitness area they can improve their physical
condition using exercise bikes, treadmills,
moving ladders and hammers. Under full
medical supervision by Dräger Safety, the
firefighters are helped get into shape ready
for their next mission, when they have to
save lives and protect property.
The state-of-the-art hose cleaning facility
replaces the previous 30-meter high hose
drying tower and 30-meter long cleaning
bath. Now, cleaning and drying a hose is
just a matter of minutes, instead of several
days as in the past. Given that the Brunswick
Fire Department has to wash around
1,000 hoses every year, this saves a great
deal of time and labor. The time gained can
now be used to clean the hoses of other
fire departments and disaster prevention
organizations from the local region.
The cooperation agreement with the FSC
gives Dräger Safety the chance to build
upon its leading position as a provider of
services to fire departments and industry,
as well as to extend its portfolio of services.
Morten Voss, Key Account Manager at
Dräger Safety and project leader: “The
efficiency of the FSC, combined with our
flexible logistics concepts, allows us to
make all our services available at a crossregional
level on a large scale. For example,
we could now be commissioned to clean all
the fire hoses of a works fire department
anywhere in Germany. The advantage for
our customers is obvious – they get all the
services they need from a single company,
and do not have to maintain a capital-intensive
infrastructure themselves. What is
more, to widen the range of training seminars
on offer from the Dräger Academy,
we will be making the FSC’s many different
courses available to other fire departments
and industrial companies, taking advantage
of the expertise of Brunswick Professional
Fire Department.”
Win-win situation for both partners
Carl-Heinz Beykuffer describes cooperation
during the four-year project with the Lübeck
specialist in total hazard management as
being founded on trust and partnership:
“The chemistry between the two partners
was good, and by the end of the project it
was clear that we had achieved a win-win
situation for both.” As Hans-Joachim Gressmann
adds: “And what is more, we now
have the very latest infrastructure and
equipment at our disposal!”
The Fire Department Service Center in
Brunswick is a success story of cooperation
between partners with a pioneering spirit!
Burkard Dillig
Morten Voß
Dräger Safety AG & Co. KGaA |
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Dräger Safety AG & Co. KGaA |
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Revalstrasse 1 |
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23560 Luebeck, Germany |
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Tel +49 451 882 0
Fax +49 451 882 2080
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