MANmagazine Truck edition 1/2017 Great Britain

01/2017
Urban traffic: The vehicles don’t always
find such clear roads, but must often fight
their way through traffic instead.
Female pioneer: Emergency technician
Asli Oskay is still the only woman on Izmir’s
fire brigade. For now, as modernisation
efforts are also underway here.
ternet presence, and virtual visitors to the
website are now greeted by a group of women
in uniform. That doesn’t quite match reality:
Asli Oskay is the only female staff member not
working in administration. “Yet the numbers
are growing,” says the 22-year-old emergency
medical technician.
SERDAR YÜCEL IS ALSO INVESTING in new
equipment, including two MAN TGM-series
trucks equipped with state-of-the-art technology.
“At the same time, these vehicles offer the
best price-to-performance ratio,” says Bülent
Tosun, chief of fire operations. Important features
include the 290 hp and the automatic
Just one button: The built-in pump
is easy to operate and delivers
3,500 litres of water per minute.
utes can mean lives. The goal is to get to an
emergency in no more than five minutes.
Yücel, formerly department chief in charge
of maritime affairs at the municipality, assumed
his position at the fire brigade four
years ago. At that time, the mayor was seeking
an individual with a strong vision, someone he
could trust to modernise Izmir’s fire brigade.
Yücel first travelled to Austria, Germany and
then Finland to learn from colleagues there.
“One problem is that Turkey has hardly any
voluntary fire brigades,” says the 53-year-old.
“In addition, many young people shy away
from the hard work hours and the relatively
low pay earned by professional firefighters.” In
Izmir, the team works in 24-hour shifts with
48 hours in between. The long-term plan is to
allow a 72-hour break, as is customary practice
in other countries. Employees earn a monthly
salary of around €1,000. To promote his profession,
Yücel modernised the fire brigade’s In-
© Monique Jaques
drive. “This accelerates the journey, and I can
focus on other things,” says Salgut. While one
electronic control panel next to the dashboard
indicates the filling levels of extinguishing fluids,
another connects the vehicle to the communication
system. The manufacturer Rosenbauer
provides both the structure and the
entire firefighting technology. Yücel is also
proud of the risk management system. An interactive
map shows call probabilities based on
empirical data. On it, he can also see the two
vehicles that have reached the motorway
headed towards the coast and are now stuck in
traffic. “Unfortunately, Turkish drivers are still
not taught how to form an emergency lane,”
says Salgut. That eats up time. With the help of
blaring sirens, the vehicles can advance only
slowly. Kansu Ozurtürk, the senior firefighter
in the group with 16 years of experience, emphasises
that while traffic used to be better, today
the vehicles are much improved: “Because
of modern technology, we can use the pumps
more quickly, so we save precious minutes at
the call site.”
The team heads out about five times each
day. Half of the calls relate to putting out fires.
“Buildings in Izmir are often more than 40
years old and outdated,” says Yücel. “That
makes houses susceptible to fires.” The rest of
the calls are traffic accidents, suicide attempts
and stray pets.
After just over seven minutes, the two vehicles
reach the destination of their training
call, Izmir’s famous clock tower. Children immediately
surround the team while their parents
take photos. “The nicest part of this job is
that you get so much back,” says Yücel, before
he tells us the story of two brothers, who one
day came up with the questionable idea of
searching for treasure in an old well. Once the
two men in their mid thirties had dug down to
about 10 metres, the walls of the well suddenly
collapsed. Hundreds of rocks buried one of the
brothers. For two days, the fire brigade removed
them, one by one. The man’s family
stood at the accident site, crying, hoping,
doubting. After 48 hours, they heard the brittle
voice of the buried man. Two days later, he
was freed. “That was an indescribable feeling,”
says Yücel.
Obviously, daily routine isn’t always that
dramatic. “We’re also often called to rescue
cats that climbed up too tall a tree and are
afraid to come back down,” says Kansu. Even
here, a firefighter must never give up hope.
„We save precious
minutes thanks to
modern equipment.”
Kansu Ozurtürk, firefighter in Izmir
MAN fire trucks are deployed around the
world – such as at Munich’s airport:
> www.truck.man/airport-fire-brigade
18
19