- Remember, kids, only you can prevent fire station fires. You, and a fire alarm.
If you preach something, you’d better practice it as well. Otherwise, you might end up making yourself look downright silly.
Just like this German fire department.
The Stadtallendotf Fire Department moved to its new fire station earlier this year. The multi-million-dollar building is a state-of-the-art facility with everything firefighting personnel could ever hope to need.
Oh, excuse us. It was a state-of-the-art facility. The whole place recently burned down — because it had no fire alarms.
Due to some loopholes in the local building code, the fire station wasn’t legally required to have fire alarms. So, to presumably save a few pennies, nobody bothered to install them.
Well, that didn’t work out so well, as the firefighters found themselves trying to extinguish their own headquarters. Unfortunately, they were ultimately unsuccessful and the inferno gutted the building.
Ironic, don’t you think?
An Ultra-modern Fire Station
Stadtallendorf is a city of roughly 21,500 residents in central Germany. It’s a thriving little burg, with successful chocolate-making and engineering businesses, among others.
In December 2023, the Stadtallendorf Fire Department got to make a big move. The department transferred its equipment and services to a brand-new fire station.
Their 70 firefighters had been waiting to move for a while, too. The new fire station had been under construction for two years and by the time it was finished, it had cost the city nearly $17.5 million.
That said, it was a building worth waiting for. This was an ultra-modern fire station, as fine as money can buy.
According to local news reports, the new Stadtallendorf fire station boasted a huge vehicle hall, with enough space for 10 firefighting vehicles. It also had a 75-foot-tall tower for training purposes, a fully-equipped gym, a lounge with a jacuzzi…
Alright, we made that last one up, but it illustrates the point. This state-of-the-art fire station had everything.
Everything except fire alarms.
‘Equipment Storage Facility’
How on earth could you build a fire station without fire alarms? Well, that’s where we get to dive into the fascinating world of building codes.
To begin with, this was a public building that was owned by the local government. To help them get necessary buildings up quickly, German law allows local authorities some leeway in construction requirements.
Additionally, the new fire station was technically not a fire station. For reasons we couldn’t find out, the building was officially classified as an “equipment storage facility,” not a fire station.
In any case, these two circumstances meant that the building wasn’t legally required to have any kind of fire alarm system. So, nobody installed one.
That would soon come to bite the fire department in the behind.
‘A Nightmare for a Firefighter’
Early on October 16, the Stadtallendorf Fire Department received a fire alarm. The firefighters hopped out of bed and rushed to the fire station…
Only to realize it was the fire station that was blazing.
Although the cause of the fire isn’t certain at the moment, initial investigations indicate that an overheating battery charger caught aflame in the fire station’s vehicle bay. Due to the lack of an alarm system, nobody noticed the fire until it had spread to the surrounding vehicles.
By that time, it was too late. Despite 170 firefighters combating the fire, the inferno destroyed each of the station’s 10 vehicles, alongside much of the station itself.
“It is a nightmare for a firefighter. No one wants to have to extinguish his own fire station,” the district fire inspector, Lars Schäfer, said according to The Guardian.
Overall, the destroyed building and vehicles are going to set Stardallendorf back some $22-$26 million. The only silver lining is that the fire station did have protective walls so the blaze couldn’t spread to other buildings.
Understandably, the incident has raised some questions about building standards. According to Schäfer, discussions are ongoing on whether the next fire station should have fire alarms.
“Discussions are ongoing,” they say. How about just installing the alarms, for heaven’s sake?