The brigade was formally established at a general meeting in February 1906, and in that very first year it acquired a horse-drawn pump that stayed in service until 1932. The fire station itself has seen plenty of work over the decades — it took its first shape in the 1930s, was extended in the 1950s, and was rebuilt into its current form by the members themselves between 1981 and 1984. Back then they put in over eight thousand hours of work. That's not a number from a brochure — that's effort you can see.
Today the response unit has ten members, and the brigade as a whole counts around fifty people. In Červená it's also the only club in the village, so it holds the local community life together too. And that's exactly what the celebration looked like.
The afternoon kicked off with a welcome for the visiting brigades. At two o'clock a ceremonial procession set off from the local chapel to the fire station, accompanied by the Letohrad brass band. Then came the official opening, a demonstration by the young firefighters, a dance performance and an exhibition of historic and current equipment. The kids had a bouncy castle, foam and face painting, the adults had refreshments, and in the evening the band Metaxa played.
We brought along our firefighting trailer and our SxS vehicles with rescue modules. We spent the time talking to firefighters right next to the equipment — what they deal with in the field, what would make their job easier, what they have to watch out for. Conversations like these are worth more to us than any catalogue ever could be. A few hours in person beats months of emails.
Thanks also go to our colleagues at Polaris Olomouc, with whom we work on the SxS modules.
The atmosphere was great, the people were lovely and the whole thing went off without a hitch. To a brigade that has stuck together for 120 years and keeps moving forward, we wish at least another 120.
