Receive information about fire protection

Preventive fire protection includes measures that serve to prevent fires, contain their spread and ensure the rescue of people.

Different agencies are responsible for fire protection and emergency response:

• the municipalities for fire protection and general assistance
• the districts for supra-local fire protection and supra-local general assistance
• the districts and independent cities for civil protection
• the state has set up the State Office for Fire and Disaster Protection in Koblenz to fulfill its central tasks and maintains the Fire and Disaster Protection Academy here for training purposes

The fire department is financed by the responsible authority. In addition, the state provides support, which enables the purchase of new equipment, personal protective clothing and the construction or renovation of fire stations, for example.

Professional fire department: Cities with over 90,000 inhabitants such as Kaiserslautern, Koblenz, Ludwigshafen, Mainz and Trier must have a professional fire department. Smaller municipalities can also set up a professional fire department.

Voluntary fire department: Municipalities without a professional fire department must set up a voluntary fire department. If there are not enough volunteers, people are obliged to serve ("compulsory fire department"). In larger cities without a professional fire department, there are often volunteer fire departments with full-time firefighters, such as in Neuwied, Worms, Speyer and Pirmasens.

Plant fire department: In companies with an increased risk of fire or explosion as well as other specific hazards, the supervisory and service directorate can order the establishment of a plant fire department. This may consist of full-time and/or part-time members. Examples of this are the plant fire departments of BASF, Boehringer and Schott-Glas.

Training in the Rhineland-Palatinate fire departments is carried out in a networked system: from local training to district training to the central school in Koblenz.

In future, all non-police calls for assistance will be received and coordinated centrally by eight integrated control centers. The integrated control centers will thus act as a single reporting point.