About Us

In Germany the fire brigades are organised by the states (Länder). That means that all states have independent laws. On the federal level the states work together, for example to establish standards for the equipment and the organisation of the fire brigades. There are also standards for the cooperation on the european level. For example all the water transport equipment is compatible in the whole European Union.

As our village is rather small our fire brigade only has a so called basic equipment, which means that we have a fire car with equipment for one group (9 people). As we got a new car in 2006 we now have a small water tank on board the car, which allows us to fight a fire faster than before.

Our fire brigade has 27 active members at the moment, nine women and 18 men. 10 comrades are in the reserve . The fire brigade has 165 members in total.

The Fire Brigade was established in 1952. In 1955 we got our first pump and in 1971 our first fire car. Through the years the fire brigade became more and more important for the social life of Elvese. Events as the easter fire for example are organised every year and other events like the Eselfest (a kind of mardi gras or carnival) are also supported. These events, which are normally not the core tasks of a fire brigade led to the founding of our fire brigade club (Verein) in 1997.

Training our members is a key task of a fire brigade. Therefore we regularly organise trainings throughout the year. Once a year we have a training that takes places during a whole weekend, where we work together with other fire brigages of our municipality. This allows us to train owith a wider range of equipment. For example we train working with the equipment needed in car accidents to get persons out of a deformed car.

In recent years our call-outs where mostly because of floodings after thunderstorms and fires. One of the biggest call-out in 2009 was a fire in a handle factory in Nörten-Hardenberg. We also had some so-called technical helps. For example we had to cut some trees that were fallen on a road during a thunderstorm.