The state of emergency in the emergency services at the fire brigade lasted 16 hours at the weekend; the opinion of BZ editor Axel Lier Photo: spreepicture/BZ Montage
By Axel Lier
“We’re knocked out,” a fireman wrote to me on Sunday night. For 16 hours there was a state of emergency in the emergency services in the capital. Sometimes there wasn’t a single free ambulance left – in a city with almost four million inhabitants.
But the firefighters didn’t let the city down. She was reliable. But nobody can give 120 percent in the long run without falling over at some point.
The rescue service law is no longer fulfilled in Berlin. Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) must now intervene more, fire department chief Karsten Homrighausen must do something. Otherwise, like in 2018, a fire barrel goes on in front of the Rotes Rathaus. “Berlin is burning” was the name of the firefighters’ vigil that lasted for months.
Berlin is just a spark away from that…
