Luderitz Receives It’s Fire Wagon In Time For Christmas

During May 2008 Karl Gertler who worked as consultant for Luderitz Town Council and Gerd Kessler (Voluntary Fireman and Rotarian for over 25 years) discussed the need of a fire wagon to serve the Luderitz community, as the old 1957 Chevy and the old 1970 model Mercedes desperately needed to be replaced.
The fire brigade in Lüderitz is being rendered by volunteers (Freiwillige Feuerwehr) on behalf of the Lüderitz Town Council. The provision of these services to the community members was hampered due to a lack of well equipped fire wag¬ons. The division only had a 1974 model, Mercedes Benz fire wagon which was not well equipped for the current needs faced by the town in respect of fire services.
Due to the influx of people looking for employ¬ment informal areas have been developed and this results in the occurrence of regular fires in Lüderitz. This is having disastrous consequences for our town. Some areas in the informal settlements also do not have any fire hydrants to supply water to extinguish the fires. The fire wagon which the volunteers used, did not have enough tank capacity to ren¬der a proper service in these areas with no fire hydrants.
In October 2008 Ro¬tarian Erhard Krause of RC Bad Homburg in Germany contacted Gerd Kessler to inform him that a suitable Fire Wagon was sourced. It had a strong pump and a 2500 litre water tank which was needed in order to be of service in Luderitz as many areas where most fires occur, have not got enough water hydrants.
This truck was paid for by the Rotary Clubs of – Bad Homburg, – Magdeburg and – Roma Olgiata and then donated to the Voluntary Fire Brigade of Luderitz via the Rotary Club Luderitz. Thank you to these organisations for their input, their eagerness to help the Luderitz Commu¬nity and their generosity.
The fire wagon, a 1980 Daimler Benz 1017 (4×4), nick named “ Roter Hans” arrived in the harbour of Walvis Bay on 5 Novem¬ber 2009 after various per¬missions and permits had to be granted by the Ministry of Work and Transport and the Ministry of Trade and Indus¬try.
After a long struggle to have the truck, which was donated free of charge to be used for the Community of Lüderitz, exempted from Im¬port Duties, the truck was re-evaluated by customs and a total amount of NS36 000.00 had to be paid, as the value was determined at Euro 20 000.
The Rotary Club of Luderitz announces a special thanks to:
•The Luderitz Town Council for making their Import VAT number available for the import of this much needed truck, as well as NAMP¬ORT for discharging the Fire Wagon from the vessel free of charge.
•Don Grimbeek, who has volunteered to collect the truck in W/Bay and who drove it safely to Luderitz.
•Rotarian Gerd Kessler who has spent many hours cor¬responding via e-mail and telephone, arranging to get this truck from Germany to Luderitz, as well as Rotar¬ians Karl Gertler and Erhard Krause.
Another project com¬pleted successfully by the Lüderitz Rotary Club.•