Vocational school could become Sapadores training center

The Professional School of Psychosocial Technology in Porto could become the future training center of the Porto Sapadores Firefighters Regiment, revealed this Wednesday to Lusa a source from the City Council.

The proposal will be voted on at the next meeting of the executive led by the independent Rui Moreira, scheduled for Wednesday, and foresees, after the conclusion of the current school year, an intervention in order to prepare the building, which is owned by the municipality of Porto, to be the new training space for the regiment and whose delivery date has not yet been advanced by the municipality.

To Lusa, the regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Marques, explained the convenience of having a space next to the regiment’s barracks, so that the elements who are giving training or receiving it can also leave for operational events, a situation that would leave them out of service if the option was for a solution further away from the barracks.

Recalling the transition, in 2022, from battalion to regiment and underlining the “increase in personnel” which now stands at “at 380, including civil servants and firefighters”, Carlos Marques pointed out that “this increase in personnel – there were around 80 in the last two years – owed a lot to the new challenges facing the city: the increase in the resident and floating population, the increase in tourism and the pandemic itself”.

In the meantime, he said, they assumed “a protocol with INEM [Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica]” and are “also a seasonal medical emergency post, in addition to the protocol with the Centro Hospitalar S. João, so that when the heliport is completed, the regiment will be responsible for the rescue”, commitments that “require more personnel, more training and more space”.

ideal space

“The school would be the ideal space for our training center as it is in the same block as the barracks, behind the Constitution pools”, said the officer in charge of the regiment, adding that “it has an outdoor space for practical training and rooms to provide training and instruction”.

Speaking of the current difficulties, the commander recalled the “protocol with the National School of Firefighters” which means that, at the moment, they are “receiving recruits from other professional fire departments, in the case of Sapadores de Viana do Castelo and Leiria”. .

“With the two recruits working we have a lack of space because the space where the recruits take place is the same that we use for our internal training of firefighters and for the training of all the units that external entities request for firefighting, support basics of life and we are always having difficulties to have rooms available”, he reported.

And he continued: “the new space will make it possible to have an even greater training offer, other types of courses, such as promotion courses, initial training, specialization in different areas, such as wide angle, dangerous materials, search and rescue in collapsed structures, of the pre-hospital, which would also bring greater revenue to the City Council of Porto”.

“It is fundamental to start as soon as possible”, underlined Carlos Marques.