(ANSA) - SANTIAGO DE CHILE, 05 MAR - "What distinguishes us is passion".
This is how Felipe Bacciarini defines the fire brigade station "Pompa Italia" of which he is director.
Located in the center of Santiago de Chile, 10 blocks from the presidential palace of La Moneda, the barracks still boasts the first steam tanker at its entrance, which worked until 1923. The Pompa Italia barracks was born a few years earlier, on July 3, 1914, on
the in the wake of a tradition inaugurated in 1858 by Pompa Cristoforo Colombo of the port of Valparaiso, the first company of firefighters founded by immigrants in America.
"To join us you must have a blood tie with Italy, it is an essential requirement. In 109 years of existence of Pompa Italia it has always been respected", said Bacciarini showing the first banner of the barracks, with the emblem of the House of Savoy.
The director of the barracks then recalled the martyrs of the company as well as the Italian German Tenderini, first martyr of the fire brigade in the capital Santiago, who died in 1870 putting out the fire in the municipal theatre.
"A street next to the Theater is still named after him", recalls Bacciarini.
"The martyrs are an example for us, they are those who most faithfully represent the creed of the firefighters to give everything in exchange for nothing", explains the director of the barracks, underlining that "our service is 100% voluntary".
"We all do something else for a living and we dedicate part of our time to this commitment that fills our souls", concluded Bacciarini, a great-grandson of Italians whose great-grandfather arrived at the end of the 1900s from Lombardy.
(HANDLE).