European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 6, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Pangelo stripes iraqis fighting fire with increased funding by Sandra Jontz stars and stripes iraqi govern ment is striving to improve the nations civil defense program which has suffered from Little or no training and poor funding for decades civil defense Basi Cally the nations firefighting ser vices had inadequate government support said maj Yaseen mus Tafa a Liaison Between the us run civilian police Assis Tance training team or Catt and the iraqi directorate general of the nations civil defense the ministry of Interior budgeted million for civil defense in 2007 up from million the year before if s a huge increase for a service struggling to meet High demands said Chris Gale senior adviser for the Spatts fire Protection and emergency services roughly 19000 firefighters operate out of 240 stations nation wide the number of firefighters is expected to grow to 42000 by mid2008 and in the next several months the directorate general plans to increase the number of stations to 287 Many of the firefighters coming on Board will have Little or no for Mal training especially in tasks such As rescuing people from col lapsed buildings and confined spaces which is a critical skill be cause of bombings by insurgents weve got a techniques course to teach them How to operate in that environment Gale said How to use bore scope cameras and microphones and look for signs where someone might be buried versus mucking through Courtesy of the civilian police assistance training team iraqi firefighters learn How to bore through Concrete to Rescue people from collapsed buildings a necessity due to the regularity of bomb Ings debris and hoping for the Best As they do now Many firefighters will be hired without training Gale said we need to increase the Man Power and eventually work on get Ting capabilities for training he said until then a lot of it will be ont Ejob training emergency medical technicians and personnel operating ambulances fall under the ministry of health and Are separate from civil defense operations about 1000 of the nations 19000 firefighters received for Mal training in Bahrain recently Gale said and roughly 300 to 400 officers Are expected to receive training either in Oman or Jordan in the near future they Are expected to train the rest of their Crews Gale said training also is planned for Basic first Aid and handling hazardous material Catt plans the training and is working to develop a Standard training curriculum and National response plan there is no Federal system in place and provincial governments Are hesitant to give up control with in their jurisdictions still Catt and the ministry of Interior Are seeking accreditation from the International fire service accreditation Congress under the accreditation plan a firefighter in Basra would meet the same standards As one work ing in Mosul said Gale who has 24 years in the fire Protection and emergency management system Catt and the ministry Are also drafting legislation giving the directorate general a position now held by maj Gen Abadal Rasool Jasim Mohammed More autonomy and making civil defense inde pendent from the ministry mus Tafa said civil defense officials had plans to build a firefighting Academy in Baghdad but the project was placed on hold after a million Grant was allocated to a childrens Hospital in Basra instead Gale said get it this sunday with your copy of so scene your entertainment and source we lost mat Money but cant really argue with that said still future plans Call for establishing a million Academy in Baghdad and satellite academies in the Southern and Northern parts of the country the solutions for now Only scratch the surface of what the pro Gram needs Gale said but were hoping its an effective scratch and Hope its infectious he said the British opened the first civil defense fire station in 1927 the Shekh Umar station now serves As a fire station and the maintenance faculty for the civil defense directorate after Saddam Hussein was ousted fire stations were looted and some firefighters took Home fire engines gear and other equip ment to save them Mustafa said looters complicated the prob Lem by setting fire to buildings without firefighting equipment people were hard pressed to quell the blazes civil defense actually was one of the few functioning agencies throughout the War Gale said these Guys stayed behind the first responders Are often at tacked and killed in the violence in Iraq a total of 140 have died from sniper attacks and bombings mus Tafa said email Sandra Jontz at from civil no up a Chiater near you