News

The CTIF Delegates Assembly and symposium 2015 took place in Zagreb, Croatia. The Croatian organisers had gone to great lengths to create an entirely successful event with conference arrangements that ensured smooth running and ideal conditions for productive meetings as well as providing great cultural and culinaric nourishment for all. The program also included a reception hosted by the mayor of Zagreb, Mr. Milan Bandic. Our heartfelt thanks go to CTIF Vice President Ante Sanader, Mario Stracevic and their team in Zagreb.

The Delegates Assembly was presented with a number of reports from the Commissions and the Executive Committee and the CTIF Statistics Centre, which all gave evidence of the extensive activities in the past year. Some of the presentations will be available on our web site.

One of the presentations given was on the topic of research. CTIF is currently deeply involved in several projects and the DA decided to further strengthen CTIF’s position in research in Europe. Former VP Dennis Davis will continue to lead CTIF’s participation in EU-projects.

Elections

As four vice presidents completed their terms this year, four new vice presidents had to be elected. The DA elected Donald Bliss, USA, Milan Dubravac, Solovenia, Ole Hansen, Norway and Zdenek Nytra from the Czech Republic. We are convinced they will make great contributions to CTIF in their new roles as vice presidents and members of the Executive Committee.

The DA also re-elected General Secretary Michel Bour and vice president Ante Sanader.

The four vice presidents who left their positions this year are Aleksander Churpryan, Russia, Dennis Davis, UK, Luther Fincher, USA and Marketa Strzinkova. We thank them for their great dedication and service to the organisation. The DA decided to appoint the four honorary members of CTIF.

Best Practice Procedures

For the first time in history, CTIF gave out an award for Best Practice Procedures. Michel Gentilleau, France was given the award for the outstanding work he and his colleague Serge Delauney have carried out regarding new energies and vehicles.

Delegates Assembly 2016 in Finland

Lastly, Pentti Partanen, chair of the Finnish national committee, gave a presentation of the preparations of the Delegates Assembly meeting in 2016, which will take place in Helsinki Finland, 7-9 September. We are sure it will be another great CTIF event!

Symposium

The symposium offered interesting presentations on a variety of topics ranging from SMART technology to statistics, drones and disaster response, to give a few examples. The presentations clearly showed that there is a lot of phenomenal development in the firefighting area and that CTIF has an important role to play as disseminator of information. The presentations will be available on our website shortly.

Thank you!

We would like to thank all those who participated at the DA and the symposium, the presenters, the exhibitors and the organisers and hope to see you soon again! In the meantime we all continue our work to further improve the world of firefighting.

Tore Eriksson
CTIF President

The Commission for "Extrication and New Technology" works within ‘ISO’ (the International Organization for Standardization) to be able to harmonize information and training for the rescue services in the field by leading the ISO Working group 7 + Taskforce rescue information.

To strengthen our initiative, the Commission is now asking to the CTIF Delegates to consider their support by signing this support letter.

Erwin Wiederin has passed away at the age of 88 years. Mr. Wiederin was a longtime regional fire inspector and the head of the National Fire Service Association between 1966 and 1991 and for many years he served as the auditor of CTIF.