Firefighting Worldwide - Denmark

Denmark

In Denmark fire fighting is, by law, a municipal task. Every municipal council are responsible for providing fire fighting and rescue services. The only requirements according to the law for this fire service are that the vehicles have to be manned with the necessary crew for the task at hand and they have to be on the way within 5 minutes after the alarm has come in. Every municipality has to perform a risk analysis and based on this maintain a competent fire fighting service. The fire department itself can be run as any one of the following:

• A public fire department managed and run by the municipality either full time or part time.
• A volunteer fire department contracted by the municipality
• Arrangement with neighbouring municipalities
• Outsourced to a private company (e.g. Falck)
• Contract with the government run Danish Emergency Management Agency (DEMA), DEMA has stations in 5 locations scattered over the country.

All fire fighters (brandmænd) have the same training, no matter if they are volunteers, full-time professionals or public or private employees. The training takes 5 weeks and can be taken in several fire fighting schools all over the country.