Firefighting and rescue at sea by the fire brigade

I am engineer Pierpaolo Patrizietti, I have the honour of being the Commander of the Taranto Fire Brigade, which has an essential role in guaranteeing the safety of both the port area and the entire provincial interland.

In particular, here we are at the Port Detachment, where we have three key units: The land unit, which operates both in the port area and in the immediately surrounding hinterland; the diving unit, which is part of the regional centre, and the nautical unit, which deals with harbour fire-fighting and sea rescue.

We also have a Search and Rescue unit in the sense that both the diving and the nautical units, work together under the coordination of the Harbour Master’s Office to search for people missing at sea or boats in difficulty due to various types of breakdown.

Recently, we responded to a crane fire within the port area and managed to prevent the fire from spreading from the crane to the ship, on such occasions, thanks to having this boat that’s behind us, we are able to guarantee the independence and operation of the pumps because we draw the water from the sea, which is a virtually inexhaustible source.

Within the province, we carry out about 9,000 interventions annually, with a slight drop now due to the Covid emergency.

Considering that the land detachment located at the port of Taranto carries out about 1,500.

It is therefore a fundamental component of the provincial rescue system.

The fire brigade detachment in the port of Taranto

Antonio Iacomino, Fire Brigade Coordinator Taranto Harbour Detachment

My name is Antonio Iacomino, head of the Fire Department and coordinator of the Taranto harbour detachment.

I, along with my other colleagues, am part of the specialist section assigned to the operation of naval vessels, there is a specialised deck and engine section, those who deal with the operation and therefore the control of the ship, and those who deal with all the main and auxiliary engines of the vessel.

Within our detachment there are large, medium and small vessels.

Logically, each has its own function: the large vessels for a search outside the waters of the port, while the medium-sized and fast ones are for easier intervention within the waters of the port.

The detachment: the second home

Being a firefighter is the job that all children dream of doing.

I actually got there almost because I was indoctrinated by my family, I’m a third generation firefighter, and within my family there are all the elements: both on land and helicopter pilots, divers and sailors.

While my passion for the sea came to me through my father because he was in the merchant navy.

When you do a job out of passion, you do it well and you never get tired of it.

So every time we come here, for us it’s not the fire brigade’s boat, it’s our naval unit, it’s our means of departure.

We are like a family here and the team, our detachment our second home.

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