World’s Worst Firefighters Watch Helplessly As Their Own Station Burns To The Ground
Posted January 14, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Firefighters are resourceful, quick thinking and heroic, charging into burning buildings to fight a heated and deadly enemy and saving lives in the process.
Most of them are pretty good at their jobs.
But then there’s the brigade in the city of Skye, Germany, who watched helplessly as their own fire station burned down – for the second time.
According to the Austrian Times, the outfit many are now branding the worst fire brigade in history lost their headquarters to a huge inferno on the weekend, a blaze that could have been caused by faulty wiring or a training exercise that went horribly wrong.
Whatever the case, the embarrassed troupe was forced to call on 250 other firefighters from surrounding towns to help bring the conflagration under control.
When the last hose was shut off and the flames were finally extinguished, the station had lost all six of its fire engines, and the final destruction total is estimated to be in the millions of dollars.
To make matters worse, it’s the second time in 15 years the same station has burned down. The place had to be completely rebuilt and all engines replaced again when a fire razed the structure in 1994.
“A fire service that can’t even keep its own fire station and engines safe doesn’t exactly inspire confidence,” the paper quotes one angry local resident as saying.
No one was hurt in the blaze, although you’d have to say their pride was definitely singed.