Brabant has about three thousand firefighters. The vast majority of them are volunteers. Primary school teacher Bo Poels from Geldrop was one of the firefighters who worked at a very large fire in Someren during the night from Monday to Tuesday. “To bed? No, I’m going to my 28 babies!”
Commander Bo Poels walks back to the fire truck with her team. Her suit full of stains and a big soot smear on her face. Her pager went off in the middle of the night. At half past two in the morning, her team relieved the team that had been fighting the fire since the first report on Monday evening at 9:40 p.m. Now Bo and her team of four men and a woman are also ready and can return to the barracks.
It is just after nine o’clock on Tuesday morning. The fire brigade spent all night fighting a very large fire at the Raijmakers family business on Houtbroekdijk in Someren. Three warehouses full of building materials, excavators and trucks were lost. An adjacent home was saved.
“So, going to bed now?” the reporter asks a tired-looking Poels. “No,” he sounds cheerfully. “I’m going to my 28 babies!” Poels is the teacher of group 8 at Dommeldal primary school in Geldrop and has planned a visit to the library with her class this morning. She has to hurry because she is expected at school at ten o’clock. Boldly jumps into the truck – a TS, tanker sprayer in fire brigade language – and they’re off.
“In all those 25 years, this was the second time I was late, so that’s not too bad, right?”
“No, I wasn’t on time,” Poels says in her classroom two days later. “I agreed to be there at ten o’clock to go to the library and I made it. I quickly jumped into the shower at home.”
Poels has been a primary school teacher for 25 years, just as long as she has been in the fire brigade. “I have turned my hobby into my profession.” The children were very curious where she came from, so they watched the images of the fire in class. “In those 25 years, this was the second time I was late, so that’s not too bad, right?” she apologizes. She never responds to notifications during school hours, although she does wear the beeper on her belt. Also at school.
The biggest difference between the fire brigade and the school is that I am in a women’s world here, because I have two male colleagues in the classroom. In the fire brigade I live in a man’s world, I have one female colleague there.” The biggest similarity between the two professions? “You are always on, children also constantly ask for your attention.”
“A burned victim that we had to get out of the car was quite intense”
At the fire station where Poels is active in Geldrop, the counter on Thursday stood at 44 turnouts this year. She used to live opposite the fire station and spoke to many firefighters when she worked in a café. “That’s how I slowly became infected with the fire brigade virus.” She is particularly attracted to teamwork. “You don’t do anything alone, you always work very closely together.”
When a report comes in, a fire truck has to be on the street within four minutes. “You leave your shopping cart, come over here, put on your suit and jump in the cart.”
Fires, accidents: when the fire brigade has to respond, something is often seriously wrong. “You know you’re heading for misery, so you don’t get scared easily.”
However, a number of incidents have remained with Poels in those 25 years. “A burned victim that we had to get out of the car was quite intense. I had already seen her so I thought: I can do that, but actually feeling her was something else.”
Fortunately, her team was there for her then, as was her husband Frank Poels. He works as a chief officer at the Brabant South East Safety Region.
