Another busy year for Palma firemen as brigade expands

Every year, Palma fire brigade is getting busier and busier and last year the service responded to 4'470 incidents, 2.52 per cent more than in 1999. The sharpest increase has been in the number of rescue and emergency call outs, while the brigade battled 1'477 fires of which 317 involved rubbish containers being set alight, one of the new criminal phenomena of the past 12 months which has kept police and fire services unnecessarily occupied. The Palma brigade also provided support to services in a number of other municipalities and spent 1.319 million pesetas on renovating its equipment. As the burden of the Palma fire brigade continues to grow, Palma city council spokesperson Antoni Garcia, said yesterday that the city council is in talks with the Ministry for Public Works over plans to build a new fire station near the Via Cintura Palma ring road. The new 11'000 square metre site will provide the service with direct access to the motorway while also providing more training facilities and even space for a museum dedicated to the brigade's 100 years in service. The fire brigade is also taking on 15 extra fire fighters.