Firefighters from Stary Węgliniec (Węgliniec municipality, Zgorzelec County) have been cooperating informally and maintaining regular contact with their colleagues from Ukraine for more than a year.
The firefighters said:
Our previous vehicle covered 1,000 km in nearly 20 hours and reached its destination. On its own wheels! We believe that the firefighters there will give it a second life and that it will not let them down in action for a long time yet, just as it never let us down.
We also obtained from firefighters in Großdubrau, Germany, and KP PSP in Zgorzelec several dozen firefighting uniforms, helmets, boots, hoses and children's helmets for our Ukrainian colleagues, which will support them during operations. The international trilateral cooperation among these several units will certainly produce tangible results in the future.
The delegation [...] consisted of three people, and the entire visit lasted two days. We were honoured by the presence of the mayor of Wiśniowiec, Wołodymyr Kravets, and the head of OSP in Wiśniowiec. The people without whom the entire project would not have had a chance of succeeding also took part in the ceremonial lunch, including the mayor of the Węgliniec Municipality and City Mariusz Wieczorek, chairman of the Węgliniec Municipal Council Wiesław Piechota, former commander of KP PSP in Bolesławiec, Senior Brigadier Grzegorz Kocon, and Adam Fornal, who heads the Lower Silesian branch of the Polish Red Cross.
Thanks to cooperation with UNESCO, it was possible to complete the formal part of the undertaking without problems and safely drive the vehicle across our eastern border.
Senior Captain Artur Czułajewski, commander of KP PSP in Zgorzelec, and former mayor of Węgliniec Stanisław Mikołajczyk, who approved the firefighters' idea and supervised its substantive aspects from start to finish, also provided invaluable assistance.
The uniformed officers added:
The board and representatives of our OSP exchanged experiences and discovered the differences between the fire-protection systems in the two countries. The entire meeting took place in a very pleasant atmosphere. The following day, before noon, we invited our guests to our fire station. After signing the documents and handing over the vehicle keys, they viewed our new vehicle and fire station, then—escorted by our firefighters to the Polish-Ukrainian border—they set off on the long journey home.
In spring 2019, we plan to visit our colleagues in Ukraine, see how our vehicle is performing, and learn about the operating principles and problems of the units in Wiśniowiec and Zbarazh. It will be an excellent opportunity to exchange experiences and strengthen cooperation.