This week, a younger girl from Alicante denounced the sending of a receipt by which the City Council of her metropolis demanded 211 euros for the intervention of a number of fireplace departments in April 2022, when this woman tried to commit suicide at her residence by ingesting remedy. antidepressants.
The case made the leap to social networks and the good commotion generated induced the rectification of the Alicante City Council, which, along with not charging for this service, will examine modifying the municipal ordinance that regulates the fee of charges associated to displacement and the intervention of native emergency groups.
And it’s that, as defined to EFE by the fireplace coordinator of the Professional Union of Local Police and Firefighters (SPPLB) and corporal of the physique within the metropolis of Valencia, Carlos Conde, the coverage of charging residents who obtain the eye of the companies of emergencies “will depend on the municipal or provincial rules” of every territory.
However, on the whole phrases, charges comparable to those who the Alicante City Council claimed from the aforementioned younger girl are solely paid by residents “when there isn’t any life-threatening state of affairs”, or in circumstances by which the fee is set of “negligence” or “recklessness”, says Conde.
“Sometimes the road may be very wonderful,” he continues, in order that on many events the choice is made by the pinnacle of service within the intervention.
For instance, it is not uncommon to cost residents charges when firefighters must open the door of a house and inside there isn’t any critical danger state of affairs for any individual.
Taxes in Lieu of Charges
Fire brigades in Spain often have municipal, provincial or regional powers.
In normal, the massive capitals have a neighborhood fireplace brigade and in the remainder of the municipalities of the identical province a corps depending on the provincial council operates.
For their half, in most single-province autonomous communities, such because the Community of Madrid, along with the capital’s firefighters, there’s a physique that intervenes in the remainder of the area’s territories.
As detailed by the CSIF fireplace division supervisor within the Community of Madrid, Juan Carlos Martínez, the interventions of the emergency companies -both native and regional- within the area are “fully free” in nearly all circumstances, since taxes are charged for tools upkeep.
A state regulatory framework?
Asked a couple of potential resolution to this “complicated” map, Valencia municipal fireplace corporal Carlos Conde misses a “state regulatory framework” that regulates the financing of journeys and interventions by emergency companies.
“We have some rules that date from the Franco interval and needs to be up to date,” he concludes.