The Colombian fire brigades at the national level, took to the streets to protest about the protection of their rights and the professionalization of the career. In Huila they came out only in Neiva where there is an official fire department. In the other municipalities, the figure of volunteer firefighters is managed.
The march of the official fire brigades, that is, those that are paid with State resources, with a direct labor relationship or for the provision of services, was carried out with the purpose of making visible to the community they protect, the current situation of these lifeguards.
Diario del Huila, accompanied these men and women of different ages who, as at the national level, see with great concern how the National Civil Status Commission announces a call for a contest, where what surprises them is the requirement of minimum requirements .
According to the call, there are no technical requirements for the contest, it will come out without requirements, just being a bachelor.
The sit-in of the firefighters in Neiva
“We see with great concern that the technical training of firefighters is not taken into account. In the case of Neiva, 47 positions will be made available between career firefighters and contract firefighters, out of 50 that serve a city of 450,000 inhabitants. . We are personnel with training and training,” said Sergeant Andrés Bernal, one of the chiefs of the Neiva official fire department.
The fire departments of the main cities of Colombia, such as Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, in short, all the capitals, carried out a similar march, “to ask for respect for the experience we have acquired throughout the years of training.” Bernal said.
Andrés Bernal, pointed out that the sit-in in Neiva is against what they consider a harmful and disastrous contest for those who are currently linked as official firefighters. “The plant is currently made up of firefighters who are 85% provisional and what they intend to do is hold a contest in which the National Civil Service Commission does not know how to evaluate the firefighters,” he said.
For the chief firefighter, as for the rest of his colleagues, what they intend to do is a “labor massacre”, because they are going to replace personnel who have been employed for up to 20 years, to recruit new personnel.
“We are not opposed to having new personnel, which is necessary, that is the law of life, but what we are opposed to is that the time of service is not respected by plant personnel and in addition to the conditions they have had, we have firefighters who have injuries and disabilities as a product of service and the question is how are you going to evaluate them and how are you going to get them out?” he added.
profile of a firefighter
Regarding the requirements for illustration of the readers of Diario del Huila, we asked about the profile of a person who wants to be a firefighter.
“Firefighter is one of the greatest responsibilities there is, the person who performs this work requires a special profile, both at an academic level, with training because standards are constantly being updated and changed, prehospital care is being updated, the fire techniques, rescue, you always have to be training and updating, “said Andrés Bernal.
A permanent update and training is required that for the current case that replaces the previous categorization of firefighters 1 and firefighters 2, by a training course for firefighters with 400 hours of training.
Sergeant Bernal emphasized that experience is required in addition to the training, “putting out a fire is not easy, experience is required, it is not like what you see in the movies, it is always with knowledge of the procedure, and in the real field is when you see who has the knowledge and experience”, he explained.
Additionally, the profile is complemented by personnel who have professions that complement the work or are related to the social service provided by the fire brigades. “We have professional personnel, here there are salubrists, industrial engineers, there are communicators, nurses, and professional health personnel, all of this is part of the service we offer to the community in Neiva,” he added.
The call to President Petro is to keep in mind that leaving a large number of firefighters who have years of experience and training creates a risk for the municipalities because if we were to leave this number of firefighters, the costs they generate, again Training them is very high and very onerous for the municipalities, the experience, the commission has not taken into account the experience or the physical injuries that we have had for many years in this arduous work”, he recalled.
The Union
Firefighters in Neiva are unionized, Julio César Conde has been a provisional firefighter for 19 years and has been president of Bomber-Neiva for about 12 years.
“This march is for the stability of us firefighters who have been carrying out this noble work for several years. The Commission intends to carry out a contest in which neither experience nor preparation is taken into account, ”he argued.
Like Chief Bernal, he maintains that it is not that they disagree that young people enter, what they want is that they repeat the experience and training that they have received during the years of service that each one has.
“For me, the municipality, if it accepts this measure, it will put the population at risk, because while it trains them and acquires experience, the city will remain headless when it comes to responding to large-scale emergencies that require personal specialized and qualified,” he said.
The contest of merits that they raise is clearly harmful for the current members of the Neiva official fire brigade. “because the evaluation system is not going to be the most appropriate for us, it is intended that young people without any degree and without any type of experience, compete in this merit contest on equal terms with us,” added the union president in the capital of Huíla.
To support the argument of the differential scale of assessment between those who have training and experience, Julio Cesar Conde tells about his training and years of experience.
“I have been at the institution for 19 years, taking courses permanently, I took courses in 2002, 2003 and I have repeated several of them because the regulations require it. In total I take about 30 firefighter courses, to argue a more or less adequate experience to deal with emergencies”.
As an additional contribution, he said that to become a firefighter who is considered experienced requires training between 8 and 10 years, with training and field attention to acquire experience.
In Neiva, of the 50 official firefighters there are, 20 are new, with one or two years of experience, “they are in training, one does not acquire the title of firefighter and that’s it, you need practice, which is where you acquire the experience.
In addition, the training process in a large majority is an investment by the firefighter, as there are no training schools here, they have to travel to other cities where there are, as in their case, a good part of the training was carried out in La Unión, Valle .
In other cases the instructors bring them, for certain topics with which they are trained in groups. Ideally, they would have a local training school, but the high costs that this implies and the lack of political will of the current rulers have not allowed an initiative to crystallize that remains a project.
A little bit about the training process is that the old ones acquire certain training and transmit it to their colleagues to repeat that knowledge and thus all grow in the training processes.
The fire brigades in municipalities other than Neiva
As we already told you, except for Neiva, which has an official fire brigade, that is, they have a direct link with the administration for the purpose of paying their salaries and providing the necessary elements to fulfill their duties, in the remaining municipalities of the department the prevailing figure is that of the volunteer fire brigade.
Volunteers is nothing different from the fact that the service is provided through third parties, the law maintains that where there is no official fire department, municipalities must contract with volunteer firefighters.
What these municipalities really do is subcontract, for example, with a commander, he offers a group of 20 volunteer firefighters, makes a proposal on the service scheme and hires them to provide a public service that corresponds to the State.
In general terms, the official fire brigade offers a certain job stability and in the case of volunteers this is more risky because contracts have to be renewed at least every six months. This generates not only inconveniences in labor but also in the supply of gasoline and the equipment that is required at the time, explained the firefighters.
There is a lack of firefighters across the country.
Some figures provided by the sergeant, Andrés Bernal, show that throughout the country, more personnel are needed, so the ideal is that more personnel be hired instead of holidaying the positions that exist.
A clear example is Bogotá, which has 615 firefighters to serve a population of more than 6,000,000 inhabitants. There should be at least 1,400 and so it could be planted in every city in the country. In the particular case of Neiva, where there are 50 firefighters to rotate in emergency care shifts in the city, they should reach at least 140 firefighters.
It is a bit like the panorama of the official firefighters in Colombia who are now threatened with a labor massacre if the merit contest that the Civil Service Commission intends to carry out is carried out as it is proposed.