Jena, Erfurt and Gera professional fire departments train together

Kurt Dannenberg and Benjamin Koppe, the heads of finance, safety and citizen services for the cities of Gera and Jena, and Andreas Horn, Erfurt's councillor for safety and environment, have the firefighters' career ladder firmly under control .

They met again on Tuesday, 30.07.2019, to discuss the closer cooperation that is planned for the future on the fringes of the basic training course for the intermediate firefighting service, which took place in Jena for the first time this year.

The shortage of new recruits and the ever-increasing demands on firefighters, such as training to become emergency paramedics, present the professional fire departments with challenges that can be overcome much better together. Building on the excellent cooperation between the cities of Gera and Jena on the subject of the control center, he is looking forward to tackling another joint field of action, explains Mayor Kurt Dannenberg.

Cooperation in training

"I expressly welcome the fact that the city of Jena has also been involved in training since this year. This is a good signal to all professional fire departments and also to the state fire service school. We need to bundle our requirements, synergies, and work together to meet the challenges we will face in the future, adds Andreas Horn.

Head of Department Koppe is certain that the close and trusting way in which the municipal cooperation between the control centers in East Thuringia began and is now also being integrated with the state government on the subject of training in Erfurt shows that sustainable cooperation does not necessarily have to be imposed from above. "An innovative impulse is usually enough to create something better. With the East Thuringia control center network, we will ensure the safety of the citizens of East Thuringia in the future - and with the planned training network, we will ensure fire protection for the whole of Thuringia and, in some cases, beyond. Of course, we do not want to compete with the fire department school in Bad Köstritz. We want to relieve the burden on the latter and thus open up opportunities for it to take care of the training of the senior civil service, but also - and this is a matter close to my heart - the supplementary training and further training of the comrades of the volunteer fire departments," continued Koppe. The training offered to volunteer firefighters in particular does not currently meet the demand in Thuringia.

Memorandum of understanding: Qualification in the fire department

At their meeting in Jena, Dannenberg, Koppe and Horn signed a corresponding declaration of intent to establish an association for qualification in the fire department and for mutual support in the training of non-medical personnel for rescue services and control centers. This also underpins the variant favored by the state government as a result of the "Control center network and location concept" report commissioned in 2016 to establish the control center in Eastern Thuringia. After a test and evaluation phase and with the involvement of the state administration and the state fire brigade school, further discussions are to be held immediately on an appropriate and sustainable solution. Joint course planning and implementation will allow synergy effects to be exploited, e.g. for special training courses, and ensure Thuringia-wide quality standards for firefighters.