Rijeka Fire Brigade (PGZ, http://www.vatrogasci-rijeka.hr/) was established in 1863 as first Croatian fire brigade. Areas of responsibility are City of Rijeka, City of Kraljevica, City of Bakar, City of Kastav and municipalities Čavle, Kostrena, Jelenje, Klana, Kastav, Viškovo. These areas altogether give an area of responsibility stretched on 517 km2. Each of the mentioned municipalities have its own voluntary fire brigade which are under command of RFB. RFB has two fire stations. Main one is the Fire Station “Centre” which is situated in the city center and Fire Station “Vežica” which is situated near by the eastern city entry. Altogether, RFB has 145 employees divided into four shifts through working periods of 12/24 and 12/48 shifts. RFB is specialized for all type of emergencies with exception of paramedics. Regarding statistics, RFB has between 1100 and 1300 emergencies per year. Around 55% of those emergencies are related to fire emergencies and 45 % are different kind of technical rescue.
Role of PGZ in the project: Rijeka Fire Brigade will participate in this project as a practitioner, sharing long term experience and domain knowledge in actual needs, constrains and challenges occurring in firefighting operations in extreme conditions. RFB will participate with its firefighters in the development activities to help the consortium to obtain adequate information on the environmental exposure, physical effort and high stake stress impacts during firefighting operations. In the infield testing of SIXTHSENSE prototypes RFB will provide training facilities (for earlier stages) and real-world operations (for the later prototype) to measure stress level on firefighters’ body during operations in urban and rural terrain where our firefighters perform all types of fire and rescue emergencies (structural firefighting, industrial fire and rescue operations, high-rise firefighting, wildland firefighting, marine firefighting, rope rescue, USAR, water rescue, diving emergencies…).
Rijeka FB will also present project activities and results within the international organizations that we belong to, in order to raise the awareness and improve willingness of first responder organizations to adopt new technologies and take active role in technology development.
RFB can provide CFBT (Compartment Fire Behavior Training) facilities, as well as locations for training fire and rescue operations in the wilderness. If needed RFB can provide high-rise building and industrial facilities as real life training fields. Fire service operational equipment, personnel and PPE are included.
