Bomberos de la Riviera Maya A.C.  Annual Report 2005.

We are pleased to report that we have made it through 2005. We have a new mayor and governor, and we survived two large hurricanes; Emily and Wilma. We are now preparing for what could be our highest fire season ever. We are proud that our new mayor has such high confidence in our fire fighters. Proving this point he has offered to send 10 of our best fire rescue personal to help in New Orleans.  

After 2 hurricanes there is not much money for new equipment from our county, but we do have 3 fire trucks sitting in California ready to come down to Playa del Carmen along with a 40 foot container full of equipment. Our department’s, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, are computerized thanks to our friends in L. A. Jim and Hope Olsen. We have brought down two more defibrillator units donated by Ontario, Canada’s Peterborough Fire Department Chief training officer, David Gillespie. A local businessmen, who is also the coordinator of the department in Playa del Carmen and the secretary of our foundation, Senor Andrea Sabbia,  has donated 5 acres of land for the construction of a new firefighters school, which has been a dream of ours for years.

In August we opened our second fire house located in Tulum with 12 men, 1 fire truck and 1 ambulance. We are also in the process of building our own rapid sea rescue craft, and it should be in service in the next few months. I don’t know if you all received my report on Hurricane Stan that passed Playa del Carmen as a tropical storm, but entered Veracruz and Chiapas as the deadliest hurricane of the season.  We sent 18 people 10 of which were volunteers from Alltournative Tours, with 5 vehicles loaded with rescue equipment, a Zodiac boat, medical supplies, food, and clothing. It was our largest rescue effort ever.

We are now preparing for our state wide academy which is set to start March 20th and end on March 25th. Please come out and support your local fire fighters! The competition is on Saturday, March 25th, starting at 9:00 AM with the final team competition starting at 1:00 PM. The competition is an international level competition called Combat Challenge. The Fire fighters of Playa del Carmen have won the state championship for three years in a row.

 This years academy will be high and low angle rescue (repel & rigging) and California TECHNICAL RESCUE RESPONSE SYSTEM. This course will start the training for a state wide specialized rescue team trained to handle large and dangerous emergencies and rescues. I cannot say enough about our two training officers Captain Bill Salmon and Captain Mike Carr, they are invaluable to us. This will be Mike Carr’s 4^th year and Bill Salmon has been training Playa del Carmen firefighters for the past 7 years. They are preparing the course for March and bringing 4 other instructors to Playa del Carmen for our 5th academy. So when you see these guys on the street please be sure to say hello and thank them for all of their tremendous efforts!  We also had an accident free year. This has a great deal to do with the training and equipment our men have.  We received, and handled, 1887 emergency calls in 2005.

Our annual Christmas toy drive with Angel Notion was a complete surprise as there were very few tourists in town, and most local people where still cleaning up from the hurricanes so our expectations were low. Two years ago we received over 2000 presents that were delivered to the poor. Last year we received 12,400 presents and this year, thanks to Chris Boehm a Canadian business man of JCB Holdings S.A. de C.V. and Resident Suites at the Royal Oasis, Playa del Carmen. They donated $60,000 peso. This money put us over the top. Along with the continued support of the Tequila Barrel we were able to deliver over 17,100 presents this year!

I cannot tell all of you how much your support means to us. Because of your support I believe our state has the best trained fire departments in Mexico. Life is good and getting better every day.

 God bless all of you.

President / Chief Brian Borjesson

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