Westland City Fire Brigade History
The Fire service started in 1880 as the Voluntary Fire Service of 's-Gravenzande. It had one main firehouse and a horse drawn-man powered fire-pump.The region grew and so the need for more equipment, in the years to come, modernization provided the first steam-powered fire-pump and through the 1920's we got our first real fire-engine driving at max. 30km/h. Through the following century the Fire Brigade always worked together with the surrounding smaller towns until the Joining of these towns into one big region/community in 1990.
After the joining off these small villages into one big community/region, all separate Fire Brigades also moved into one large community Fire Brigade and it has grown since then.. The new city was called Westland City and the new Fire Brigade logically called: Westland City Fire Brigade. Now consisting of 7 stations and many vehicles.
Because Chief Marcel Storm, had been in office since 1980 and very old fashioned, the Fire Brigade (FB) never had an Internet site. As of January 2003 the new Fire chief, Lt. Remco Relisis, has started a modernization project and hence this new internet site.
Equipment through the years
The FB started out as a voluntary service with 2 Pumpers and one command car. At that time, response times were at an average of 10 minutes. Today the FB has 7 fire stations manned by a regular-full time crew. The equipment at this stage is :
- 8 Helicopters
- 2 Airplanes
- 11 Command cars
- 1 Command and messenger Motorcycle
- 2 Mobile communications units
- 3 Container trucks
- 3 Support truck
- 8 Support vans
- 2 Snorkels
- 4 Ladders
- 5 Tankers
- 16 pumpers
- 8 Trailers : 1 Divers assistance, 1 equipment and BA, 2 pumps, 3 light units, 1 boat trailer
- 14 Containers
- 5 Airport fire tenders
- 5 Fire patrol ships
- 4 Fireboats
The response time today is at an average of 3 minutes. The old fire station still serves today, but headquarters and dispatch have moved to a new building at Naaldwijk street.
Though Westland City always has had a harbour, the FB never had any patrol-/fire ships and always cooperated with neighboring Fire Departments. As part of the deal, FB provides air coverage for these communities. Because the harbour has grown over the years into an international Seaport, the amount of traffic and goods going through the harbour have increased. To keep up with this the FB had ordered 4 new patrol vessels in 2003 of which we took delivery in 2004 and 2006. As a result a new harbour fire station was build and was finished, behind schedule, late August 2004. The agreement with our neighbours still stands and will be prolonged.
Modernizing the WCFB-fleet
In 2004 the new Fire chief also started a large modernization scheme of our fire-engines and support vehicles. Some were really out of date and needed much maintenance. To get up to speed the WCFB had ordered 8 new pumpers and 2 new HazMat trucks. Some of the older engines were still good enough to be refitted to the latest standards and this process started, after delivery of the new engines in 2005. In 2006 the WCFB will be going into the last fase of this modernization and will be refitting some Stations and the last vehicles.
Pictures of our engines, stations and other equipment, will be placed on this website when available.
