Page 27 - THE FIRE STATION

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the five largest emergency centres (so-called ‘X’ centres) in
Belgium (together with Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels and Liege).
These are the only ones fully staffed by professionals, whereas
‘Y’ centres have a mix of professionals and volunteers and ‘Z’
centres just volunteers (with no permanent on-call facilities).
As a reminder, a few Belgian communes have their own fire
brigades just responsible for their own territory. This led the
legislature to introduce a 4th fire service category, autonomous
‘C’ centres (Corps Autonomes) as found in Fleurus.
This distinction underlines the national importance of the
Charleroi Fire Department. It is worth noting here that, as
of 1 January 2015, Belgium had 251 Regional Fire Departments
accounting for a total of 17,000 firemen. Of these, just 5,000
are professionals, 332 of whom are stationed in Charleroi.
O.: “Firewomen? There aren’t that many! Women are expected
to perform at the same physical level as men. Actually, there are
proportionately more women in Y and Z centres than in X cen-
tres staffed just by professionals. You’ll find more women work-
ing in a voluntary capacity, as that’s obviously more compatible
with family life. For them, being confronted with a dead child is
even worse.As in the police force, where we are seeing more and
more women in uniform due to the development of multicultur-
alism, can we expect more women in certain tasks? A number of
them have been trained for administrative or paramedic duties.”
F. : “But paramedic work can be quite trying for a woman. It’s
quite heavy work, and quite a few female paramedics have been
redeployed in lighter jobs, for instance in administration. It’s
not really a job for women. Though there is one female officer
in Brussels!”
With regard to the Law of 15 May 2007 on civil security which
sets down the organisation and functioning principles of the
Belgian fire and civil protection services, everything changed on
1 January 2015 when the organisation of fire services was trans-
ferred from local government to a system of zones.
Belgium is now divided into 34 zones, each of which is a sepa-
rate legal entity made up of several fire brigades.This means that
firemen are now assigned to zones (governed by a management
board), and no longer report to local authorities and their mayors. tional structures.
The main aim of this reform is to optimise rescue and fire ser-
vices and thereby to improve the safety of citizens and emer-
gency staff, but also to improve the training and status of firemen
by professionalising the working environment of fire and rescue
staff, while allowing a better allocation of resources and funding.
In the context of this reform which took more than ten years to
implement, Charleroi has become the lead station of the East
Hainaut Zone, with all of the zone’s fire stations now under its
leadership.
The East Hainaut Zone covers 22 communes: Aiseau-Presles,
Anderlues, Beaumont, Charleroi, Châtelet, Chimay, Courcelles,
Erquelinnes, Farciennes, Fleurus, Fontaine-L’Evêque, Froidchap-
pelle, Gerpinnes, Ham-sur-Heure/Nalinnes, Les Bons Villers,
Lobbes, Merbes-le-Château, Momignies, Montigny-le-Tilleul,
Pont-a-Celles, Sivry-Rance and Thuin, with a number of the
mayors thereof making up the zone’s board.
The East Hainaut Zone covers a surface area of 1,111.32 hectares
(1,111 km2), or 3.64% of total Belgian territory (30,528 km2).
O.: “We keep the dark sides of our work to ourselves! At home, we
only talk about the nice aspects of our work. It’s a very tough job.
You build up a barrier between your work and family life. Stress
exists for the family. They’re the ones we have to protect. For
instance, at home we don’t talk about incidents. Keeping the dark
sides of our work to ourselves binds us together. But the way
mentalities are developing and the emergence of the Internet
have made us more individualistic. There’s less contact between
colleagues between incidents. These days, everyone passes their
time in front of his smartphone or PC. In the past, we would
discuss things or play games in our free time. But sports remain
an excellent way of getting together, helping to promote a team
spirit. And fire brigade dinners also help in bringing in the fami-
lies. On St. Barbara’s Day, we empty the garage and then fill it
with tables for the banquet. That’s a very important event!“
The change to the system of zones also meant that fire brigades
were no longer the responsibility of local authorities and could
no longer depend on the support of local departments for HR
matters, accounts, procurement, etc.
To function properly, they have had to set up their own organisa-