A cutting-edge rescue service
'There was enormous interest in learning new skills. Many of those who participated in the training programmes were outside Estonia for the first time, and had a chance to see how we live and work here."
HANS KUUSK HELPED TO establish a new emergency services agency in Estonia after the country gained independence in 1991. Now, he's more than a little surprised that it was possible to create a cutting edge fire 6c rescue service in just 10 years.
"When we began to cooperate in 1992, the whole organisation was obsolete. It was extremely hierarchical and based on a passive and militarised culture. Several of the senior staff members we met couldn't handle the changes - they were still stuck in the past," recalls Hans Kuusk, who has been Head of the Technical Department at the SRSA College in Skovde for years. v Much of the equipment was obsolete too. Protective masks and other protective equipment could be more than 30 years old. Most of the equipment was designed for war use. The tank trucks could be converted missile carriers or other military vehicles.
"The machines really weren't suited to civil society. They were heavy, unwieldy and hard to manoeuvre. They were also very poor from an environmental point of view," explains Hans Kuusk.
OPERATIONS QUICKLY BECAME more effective once equipment began to be replaced. In Sweden there was a surplus of civil defence equipment, which was sent over to Estonia and put to good use. Hans Kuusk saw some of the equipment in use when his Estonian counterparts were tackling a forest fire outside Tallinn.
"Although the equipment from Sweden was quite old and used, it was ideal for use in the transitional period, before management and administration systems had been established," he recalls.
FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, there was a great interest in development and learning new skills. Training programmes were launched in both Estonia and Sweden. Most of the participants were between 20 and 30 years old. Soon, a new generation began to take over, changing the old structures as they went.
"There was enormous interest in learning new skills. Many of those who participated in the training programmes were outside Estonia for the first time, and had a chance to see how we live and work here in Sweden. Then they took that which they found useful and developed it at home," recounts Hans Kuusk.
A total of 200 officers, instructors and specialists from the Estonian fire & rescue service participated in training programmes run by the SRSA. In cooperation with the Finnish fire & rescue service, a new training course was established at the Vaike-Maarja Fire & Rescue College.
"Part
of the programme focused on making training exercises more
environmentally friendly. They started
to burn natural gas, instead of
car tyres and other waste that caused
terrible pollution, in order to
reduce the environmental impact,"
explains Hans Kuusk.
the last element of the capacity building work that he participated in focused on helping management to draw up strategies for the future of the organisation. His most recent visit to Estonia was in 2006, when he could see that the capacity building project had been a great success.
"There are now modern fire 8c rescue stations created more or less from scratch, with well-trained personnel and advanced equipment. It is fantastic to see that it was possible to implement such major changes in such a short space of time," concludes Hans Kuusk.