Record balance for 2024

Salzburg’s fire departments deployed 16,625 times

Archive picture(Bild: Josef Tschematschar (Landesfeuerwehrverband Salzburg))

Salzburg's firefighters can look back on a record year: the fire departments worked almost 1.5 million hours in 2024. 16,625 operations had to be dealt with. In 2024, there were more fires, a high increase in technical operations and more preventive fire protection operations.

"I am incredibly proud of the work of our Salzburg fire departments," says Provincial Fire Service Commander Günter Trinker. The main reason for the increase lies in the area of technical operations, which make up the majority of fire department operations. The Florianis had to respond 11,374 times (2023: 8695) to traffic accidents, oil spills, storm, thunderstorm and flood operations or to help neighbors.

There were also 4158 fire operations (2023: 3393) with 42 major fires (2023: 26), 109 medium-sized fires and 576 small fires. In 87 cases, the fire had already been extinguished before the fire department arrived. A large proportion of the fire operations were due to 2823 false alarms or deceptive alarms caused by fire alarm systems (2023: 2292). Work in the preventive area tripled. With 1093 fire safety watches (2023: 330), the fire department supported preventive fire protection.

New high for young firefighters
As at the reporting date of 31.12.2024, the number of active members was 11,347 (+ 15 people). In addition, there are 4407 non-active members, 166 honorary members and 1434 (+ 13) young people aged 10 to 15. The number of members in the youth fire department, with 94 youth groups, is at its highest level since it was founded in 1978.

The interest of girls in the fire department is also increasing, with 364 girls currently in training. Last year, 214 young people joined the active service and are now volunteer firefighters.