Frederiksborg Fire & Rescue Service (FBBR) provides fire and rescue services to municipalities of Frederikssund, Halsnaes, Hilleroed, Gribskov, Egedal and Furesoe in the center of the island of Zealand, in Denmark. The six municipalities are home to approximately 250.000 inhabitants, who live within a land area of 1058 square miles.
FBBR possess a wide experience in Civil protection issues – both at the national and international level.
At the national level, FBBRService has long term strategic aims of providing the social, economic and environmental well-being of the residents of the six municipalities. Central to this is a focus on preventing fires and other emergencies from happening and in doing so reducing death, injury and damage to property, environment and society as a whole.
FBBR service´s primary task, as described in the Danish Emergency Management Act, is to provide rapid response services in emergency situations.This include responding to and preventing; fires, road accidents, flooding, fires at sea, hazardous material and chemical incidents, major incidents including terrorist attacks, boat preparedness and providing other humanitarian services such as rescuing casualties from a variety of emergency scenarios. Also, FBBR´s focus is on the preventative work and includes fire and safety inspections, fire safety building design, fire hydrant maintenance, basic fire fighting courses, etc., in accordance with the Emergency Management Settlement of 2002. By doing soreducing death, injury and damage to property, environment and society as a whole.
In addition, FBBR provides many secondary services which are not prescribed by law, but which are regulated by a legislative framework in which local authorities are free to determine the scope of provision. We operate emergency call out centres, inspect fuse cabinets and shelters, technical arms, equipment and gear and arrange accommodation and provisioning in the event of natural disasters and catastrophes. We participate in emergency service provision, provide support to pensioner organisations and provide some emergency medical assistance services in Hundested area.
FBBR also offers a range of courses and training to school children and the general public which are tailored to meet specific needs. Our training is based on a philosophy of lifelong learning and prevention on a wide range of actions.
Above mentioned is based on an approach we use in Denmark when we are preparing for both usually and extraordinary incidents – that cannot be managed with ordinary resources alone. This approach is Comprehensive Preparedness Planning which is composed of different parts such as Risk Based Dimensioning, Risk andVulnerability Analysis, Crisis Management (activation and operation of crisis management organization, coordination of activities and resources, communication, information management, situation picture, and operative response) i.e.
FBBR Service’s operational activities are overseen by the Danish Ministry of Defense.
FBBR is constantly working on improving its skills to better respond to all types of risks especially in case of various disasters.
At the international level, FBBRexploitsa lot of its wide knowledge and experience related to the various kind of risks and disasters and with that contributes to different EU projects related for instance,to risk and vulnerability assessment, especially to scenario building,crisis management, situation assessment, information management, coordination, communication operative response etc.
In this connection, FBBRparticipates/and participated in a series of international cooperation projects, including among others:
- HEIMDALL – EU funded project, which aims are improving preparedness of societies to cope with complex crisis situations in case of for instance fire, flood, and landslides by providing a flexible platform for multi-hazard emergency planning and management.
- beAWARE EU funded project, which aim is to provide support in all the phases of an emergency incident.
- FIREFIGHTERS: role models promoting social inclusion – EU funded project, which aim isto promote social inclusion in several innovative ways.
- EVAPREM – EU funded project, which aim is to develop a universal and comprehensive model for evaluating the results of prevention measures implemented the rescue boards of European countries.
- ANSFR project “Accidental, Natural and Fire Risk”, a project whose purpose was to prevent and reduce the risk of human and financial costs of fires through effective risk assessments and risk management.
- European Forest Fire Networks Project (EUFOFINET). The main purpose was to improve national and regional policies regarding both risk prevention and management for forest fires with special focus on the transfer of good practices.
- EUSBSR 14.3 (European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region) aimed to develop scenarios and identify challenges around all the main hazards in the Baltic Sea region in order to be able to anticipate disasters and ensure a rapid and effective EU response through the Community Civil Protection Mechanism. Focus areas of the project 14.3 includes storms/extreme weather, flooding and forest fires.
FBBRlike end user and with its expertise in Civil Protection issues that includes knowledge, experience and skills regarding a comprehensive preparedness planning – at different levels especially related to Risk Based Dimensioning of the municipal Fire & Rescue Services, Risk and Vulnerability Analysis (RVA), crisis management (coordination, communication, information management, situation picture, operative response) training & education, evaluation, exercises will contribute to fulfilling of the HEIMDALL projects objectives on the one hand. It includes contribution to development of decision making model, scenario building, estimation of impact, crisis management (information management, coordination of activities and resources, communication, operative response).
Also, FBBR will test, use and integrate the tools, developed by the HEIMDALL project in its daily work. This can improve the efficiency to respond to any larger incident or emergency and thereby minimize the consequences as well as it will strengthen FBBR in integration of new features and using tools to enhance competences in the field of civil protection.
Additionally, FBBR will disseminate the outcomes of the project to other fire & rescue services, relevant institutions, organizations and authorities in Denmark and others (e.g. Civil Protection organizations – at different level in the EU-candidate countries).