Firefighting Worldwide - The Netherlands

The Netherlands

In The Netherlands municipalities are bound by law to have a fire brigade and participate in a regional fire service. The local brigade is responsible for responding to all incidents; the regional fire service provides a control centre and operates the special vehicles. There are 25 "safety Regions". These regions' boundaries are the same for fire, police and ambulance service and most regions have a combined control centre. The regions are self-contained and can cope with most incidents, in extreme circumstances other regions will provide assistance. All emergency services rely on a single modern digital national communications network based on the Tetra standard. This makes mutual assistance between regions simple to coordinate. Unlike some other countries the ambulance service is completely separated from the fire service, although the control centre is usually shared.

About 75% of all firefighters are volunteers, the rest are professional firefighters. Although most firefighters in the Netherlands are volunteers, they all get paid. Volunteers get a small amount of money to compensate the costs, because they have to leave their jobs and take risks.

The appearance of emergency vehicles is standardized in order to keep them optimally recognisable for other road users. The basic first response unit is an engine manned by a crew of six, a commander, a driver, an attack-team and a water supply team. Aerial ladder or tower trucks are dispatched when needed. Because it is impractical to build trucks to carry all the possible types, all regional fire services across the nation use a standardized type of containers. These containers are transported by special trucks. The containers are built for specific purposes. There are containers with command and control, hydraulic submersible pumps (up to 8000 litres per minute), hoseline (up to 3 km of 150-mm hose), watertank, foamtank, decontamination, Hazmat, breathing apparatus, technical rescue, etc.