Finnish fireman tries to help colleagues in Kabul
Paul Eskelinen wants to take old fire engines to Afghanistan
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By Jaana Laitinen
Paul Eskelinen , 34, from Espoo, is a stubborn man. Just so you know.
He works as a fireman and ambulance driver at the Espoonlahti emergency centre. In addition he is organising help for his colleagues in Afghanistan, although he runs into resistance from all sides.
Eskelinen left for Afghanistan for a year in 2004 with the Finnish NATO-led peacekeeping forces. He soon saw what state the Kabul fire brigade was in.
"It is frightful."
Eskelinen shows us a photograph of an old wreck that was once a good fire engine. The side hatch is open and a few axes lie inside. That is just about all they have to put fires out with.
"They try hard to put out fires. The men have suffered plenty of burns."
A city of five million inhabitants should have at least ten fire stations, Eskelinen estimates. Now they have just four. They have seven functioning fire engines, and they are all 20-30 years old.
"They do not even fit in the narrow streets."
The fire hydrant system was destroyed in the civil war. The fire engine has to return to the station to refill, which can take as long as an hour. Due to the lack of fire engines, the firefighters travel on the roofs of the vehicles.
"If the driver brakes too fast, men fall off and get hurt."
Eskelinen’s story gets curioser and curioser. When he came to town, the fire stations did not even have telephones. People ran to tell them about fires. He was able to collect enough money with another Finn, so that the stations now have telephones and a new number.
"The number used to have six digits, and nobody remembered it. Now the number is 113."
In the Civil-Military Cooperation forces Eskelinen was allowed to use an EU grant of EUR 55,000 to buy new equipment for Kabul’s firefighters. He shows a picture of the men in their new gear.
One of the men has a snorkel, fins and a wetsuit.
"They have a reservoir where people drown every weekend. The rescue workers work as lifeguards by the shore. They swim to help people in trouble – if they can make it. They have neither a boat, nor diving equipment. In an Islamic country this is a problem, since they want to bury their dead the same day", says Eskelinen.
The fins help the firemen swim faster. The gear enables them to dive to reach depths of four metres.
"We did not dare get the men proper scuba gear. They would drown in the reservoir themselves without proper training."
Eskelinen returned to Finland last year and started a "private war".
"The situation has remained unchanged in Afghanistan for four years after the UN arrived. Millions of euros are spent on rebuilding, but there is no money or experts for the rescue services. Just recently, a brand new hospital built with UN funds burned to the ground. Where is the sense in this?" fireman Eskelinen wonders.
Eskelinen has asked for help from Finland from several ministries.
"The message was that the rescue services are a necessary evil in Finland as well. And the rebuilding teams will not help either, since the mandate given by the UN is to improve security - as if fires and disasters were not part of that", Eskelinen complains.
Eskelinen would like to send old fire engines from Finland to Afghanistan. The idea would be to drive them there. A lot of equipment would go along with the vehicles. He desperately needs people to help him.
"We put out fires with a minimum amount of water to avoid water damage. This skill would be vital in the dry Afghanistan. We could be the pioneers of rescue service development over there."
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 18.5.2006
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 23.5.2006 - THIS WEEK |
 Finnish fireman tries to help colleagues in Kabul |
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