Warsaw Fire Brigade

Warsaw Fire Guard (Polish: Warszawska Straż Ogniowa) was a fire fighting unit in the city of Warsaw. Formed as Warsaw's first permanent fire service in 1834, it remained an independent and city-owned venture until its nationalization by the Nazi German authorities during the occupation of Poland following the Invasion of Poland of 1939.

The Warsaw Fire Brigade was created on December 23, 1834, by the Administrative Council of the Kingdom of Poland. It was to be modeled after a similar fire-fighting unit created in Saint Petersburg only a year earlier. On February 6 of the following year Lt. Colonel Jan Robosz became the first Fire Chief of Fire Guard in Warsaw. The organization of the unit ended on January 1, 1836, and it began its duty. Initially named Fire Guard in Warsaw (Straż Ogniowa w Warszawie), in 1841 it was renamed to Warsaw Fire Guard (Warszawska Straż Ogniowa). The Guard was entitled with all maintenance duties in the city, including putting down fires and fire prevention, but also cleaning the chimneys and the streets. It was divided onto four departments, each of them responsible for a different borough of Warsaw. In 1851 an additional department was created for the borough of Mirów. In 1864 the Guards received the first steam engine-operated mobile pump, manufactured by a London-based F. Shand, Mason and Co. firm. The following year two additional vehicles arrived, thus making the Warsaw Fire Guard one of the best-equipped fire units in continental Europe. The Guards also assisted in a number of experiments, among them in the tests of a carbonic acid fire extinguisher in 1869.

Although the Guards remained largely independent even after the failed January Uprising against Russia, the death of Col. Urban Majewski in 1872 marked the end of much of its independence. His successor as the commander of the Guards, Col. Ivan Anienkov, was a Russian and, in accordance with Russian policy of Russification of Poland, until World War I all commanders of the Guards were also Russians. In 1887 the Guards form a Fire Brigade Band; with time it became one of the notable parts of the folklore of the firefighting units in Poland. Even as of 2006^[update] most of the fire fighting units have their own orchestras. In 1878, president of Warsaw Sokrat Starynkiewicz ordered a new building for the Guards' headquarters, the first such building constructed in Poland specifically for the needs of the firefighters. Throughout its existence, the Guard usually followed the technical development and introduction of new equipment. In 1906 the guards were equipped with asbestos protective gear, as the first firefighting unit in the Russian Empire. In 1911 the first mobile ladder made by the Magirus company arrived, and in 1914 the Guards leased the first automobile, a van manufactured in the Büssing company.

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