Chile Forum

There are a lot of other ways to help them out too.

They also do raffles to raise money, normally for a new car or something.

The father of one of the young attorneys that worked for us is a bombero. Every year a I buy a few dozen raffle tickets off her or the whole book when she is helping her father raise money for them. I figure it is hell of bargain, compared to paying thousands of dollars in property tax (that the firefighters likely would never see anyway).

We have a friend that had a chimney fire. The bomberos were there in mins and put it out. Later she seen the same guys one day buying stuff for an asado for the local bombero station at the grocery store. So she paid for all their asado stuff including the beer and meat.

By the way, being a bombero in Chile is not like just walk up to a station and joining. There is no shortage of people wanting to join. There is a long waiting list to be accepted for training normally, and once in, people tend to stay bombereos for life. It is a serious deal, that people are very proud of in Chile once they get in.

Yeh they normally join just out of high school as they have to be 18, they start training and are accepted or black balled in a vote by the entire house. After several years they move up and start training in things like high angle rescue. The majority of the calls in Santiago are for auto accidents on the highways, where they do the heavy cutting and removal for the ambulance service. The 14th’s main finance come from subscriptions by thousands of people who pay 5-10k a month. They do the big drive when they need new equipment but that is often covered by the old guard, many of which are professionals. Yes it is a once you are in you are a member for life.

The 14th on Parade in front of their new firehall.

yea, depends a lot it seems on how rich the community is also. Little frutillar has two fire departments, I believe three buildings (perhaps more), and many trucks; yet, I have seen some towns much larger than frutillar struggle with just a couple trucks.

I seen for instance that the Puerto Mont fire department is trying to get the money to buy a real ladder truck. They don't have anything that can reach more than a few floors, even though they now have high-rise buildings in Puerto Montt that top 20 floors and bigger ones are being built all the time.

Parade in front of Buckingham Palace. They where in England to lay a wreath at the Fallen Fireman Memorial.

One of the PT. Montt halls has women fire fighters, very controversial

I have seen a few women in the frats in various places. Not completely a boys club, but pretty close.

patagoniax wrote:

trabajo en progreso wrote:

El Chupacabra wrote:It's actually funny you bring this up. I was considering/looking into volunteering.

you going to pee on the fires to put them out?

I am certain he would be damned good at it, too.

Come on guys, it's obvious that my urines alcohol content level would shirley set me on fire if I peed on a flame.

El Chupacabra wrote:Come on guys, it's obvious that my urines alcohol content level would shirley set me on fire if I peed on a flame.

Shirley.

patagoniax wrote:

El Chupacabra wrote:Come on guys, it's obvious that my urines alcohol content level would shirley set me on fire if I peed on a flame.

Shirley.

Ya, I set myself up for that one.