In 2014, the new 2014-2025 Master Plan for the Fire Prevention, Extinction and Rescue Service (FPERS) was presented. The plan’s main objective is to respond to the need for adapting and shaping the Barcelona Fire Service to new risks that may occur in the city, in terms of knowledge and training, as well as the introduction of better intervention techniques and strategies.
Objectives
- Ensuring the maximum efficiency of Barcelona City Council services.
- Optimising the distribution of available resources.
- Consolidating the comprehensive management of emergencies.
- Defining the careers and internal promotion of firefighters.
The plan specifies and implements the necessary resources to ensure the maintenance of safety levels (prevention) and the quality of our response to emergencies, reinforcing preventative actions in a local sense.
It analyses the interventions and risk situations that occur in the city; it plans for future situations that must be faced in coming years, changes in risk scenarios, such as the urbanisation of large urban areas, the creation of new transport infrastructures, the consolidation of newly-created logistic areas, the renovation of establishments and changes to their uses.
The plan means that the Fire Service exercises responsibility for the comprehensive management of a city emergency, including initial planning, the level of risk, full recovery in coordination with the comprehensive emergency system, which consists of the Fire Service, the Guàrdia Urbana (GUB) and Mossos d’Esquadra police forces, as well as medical and social emergency services.
In recent years, the functions of this service have become increasingly varied, passing from the concept of firefighters to a more cross-cutting concept in which, in addition to intervening in fires, our professionals also intervene in rescues, relief work, technological fires, chemical leaks, planning events and many other functions.
The prevention side of the Fire Service and Civil Protection has been fostered, strengthening links with the most vulnerable groups in neighbourhood communities and improving educational and informative actions.