"I, at least, will sleep much more rested tonight." From yesterday, Friday, to today, Saturday, the mayor of Faro Rogério Bacalhau will have had a calmer night, as well as the Firefighters Sapadores from Faro and their families, after members of this corporation have received new Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), both for urban and forest fires.
This Friday, the headquarters of Firefighters Sapadores de Faro hosted a ceremony in which 39 urban PPE were delivered, intended to help peacekeepers fight fires in this environment, and 28 forest PPE, to face this type of fire. The difference in the number of devices of one type and another delivered lies in their origin.
In the case of urban residents, it was the municipality of Faro that made, alone, the financial effort to purchase protective equipment. “The urban PPE was paid 23% by us. There is no co-payment, but we believe it was worth making this effort. We are talking about a sum of XNUMX thousand euros», revealed the Farense mayor Rogério Bacalhau, speaking to the Sul Informação.
“This was a priority for us, which we have now managed to achieve”, he summed up, adding that, in this case, protective suits were purchased “for all the operatives of the Firefighters Sapadores in Faro».
The forestry PPE was acquired as part of a joint application to community funds from AMAL, ANPC and the Algarve municipalities, on an individual basis. In all, 845 pieces of equipment of this nature were acquired in this way., later distributed by the 17 existing fire brigades in the region.
See photos from the ceremony:
Rogério Bacalhau added that he still does not know if there will be a new joint bid, which would allow the acquisition of the remaining forest PPE, but he assured that, if this is not possible, the municipality of Faro will make efforts to buy them.
“For me, this measure is very important, because the safety with which these men and women carry out their activity must have top priority. The equipment they use is more than a decade old, some of them no longer fully fulfill the function for which they were designed: they are broken, they do not protect one hundred percent», explained Rogério Bacalhau.
The mayor ensures that he is well aware of the importance of using this equipment, even from what he has seen, since he is president of the Chamber of Faro.
«In the fire in Horta da Areia, there was one of the firefighters who got an electric shock and his PPE saved his life. Even for having come into contact with this reality, my concern was much greater», he said.
Who also won with the measure of the municipality were the two young interns that the Farense corporation is hosting, coming from the Czech Republic, who were also presented with an urban PPE.
“They are here to provide a service to our community and it would be bad for them to be left out. Thus, they are also equipped for relief missions», said Rogério Bacalhau.
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