Record number of fire brigade entries in Karlsfeld

Created: 12/16/2021, 8:00 AM

The core team, consisting of (from left) Michael Konrad, Michael Peschke, Thomas Theil, Roland Gerhager, Gerhard Nieder, Stephanie Nieder and Niklas Wochnik has taken care of new members.

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Karlsfeld comrades were able to win 41 members in 18 months.

Under the motto “Strong for you. Even stronger with you ”, posters for the campaign to recruit members of the volunteer fire brigade have been seen throughout the municipality over the past 18 months. "Despite the difficult pandemic conditions, we were able to get a total of 27 adults - six women and 21 men - as well as 14 young people - three girls and eleven boys - excited about the volunteer fire brigade in 18 months," enthused Michael Konrad, who runs the fire brigade's recruiting project Karlsfeld headed. “That is an absolute record. No volunteer fire brigade in Germany has so far realized such a high number of new entrants in this period, ”emphasized Konrad. A whole team of volunteers is responsible for the resounding success,who took care of the project within the Karlsfeld volunteer fire brigade.

The “core team” alone, with Roland Gerhager, Michael Konrad, Gerhard Nieder, youth warden Stephanie Nieder, commanding officer Michael Peschke, Thomas Theil and Niklas Wochnik, worked around 980 hours of volunteer work - in addition to their actual duties in the volunteer fire department. The effort has undoubtedly paid off, emphasized Konrad: "Every euro invested by the community in the project will pay off 60 times as much per year in the future". Peschke recalled the initial situation: “In recent years we have been able to compensate for the absence of active members - for example, due to retirement or relocation. That means that we lost two to three members and gained two or three new ones on average over the year. While the number of active members has remained constant over the years,the number of missions has tripled within 30 years to around 250 missions per year, ”said Peschke. "When we presented our plans for the campaign to the local council at the end of 2019, we therefore warned that - if this development continues - we will no longer be able to maintain our level of performance in the medium term," explained Konrad.

Numerous other examples of fire brigades throughout Bavaria and also in the district show that this is not an isolated case.

“Last year, the Dachau volunteer fire brigade had to create 15 jobs for full-time firefighters to ensure operational readiness.

That costs the city of Dachau around 1 million euros annually, ”affirmed the commandant.

The Karlsfeld fire brigade is a long way off from that: "The Karlsfeld community has taken a very big step to ensure the safety of its citizens in the future with volunteer firefighters."