Kay-Uwe Himstedt is an experienced fire fighter who will complete the team of trainers at ifa. With immediate effect he will accompany several courses, to learn the tactics and technics and will support our trainers during excerises.

He will take over own classes as soon as possible.

We will add some more informations about his CV later here.

We are delighted to welcome him aboard!

From a very early age, Wolfgang Jehle has had the fire service in his blood and from 1982 to 2002 served in the volunteer fire brigade in Bad Säckingen (Germany). He has also completed a large number of basic and advanced training courses at the Fire Service School of the German Federal State of Baden-Württemberg in Bruchsal.

As a trained career fireman, at Ciba-Geigy (later to become Novartis Services), he headed up a 24-hour service group, also simultaneously successfully completing Swiss Fire Service instructor training I-III.

As a result of the takeover of Novartis Services AG by Johnson Controls, from 2002 he built up the company's Fire Protection and Safety Department as its manager. In 2006 he completed an MBA course at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and in 2008 took up the position of Strategic Programme and Project Manager as part of the company management.

His job will be the acquisition of more important and integral projects. The management is convinced that Wolfgang Jehle will carry out his assignment with bravura and wishes him a good start.

This engineer, who qualified at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, was born in 1979 and is married with a daughter. He remains joint proprietor of the EcoEng GmbH engineering consultancy in Porrentruy (canton of Jura), and would now like to apply himself more to his passion for the fire service again, so has joined us on a part-time basis (50%).

Federico Ferrario will now steadily incorporate his many years of valuable experience in a professional and firefighting environment into his classroom instruction activities.

Born in Ticino, he is an officer in the Porrentruy volunteer fire brigade and a Swiss fire service instructor. We would like to welcome him to the ifa team and wish him lots of success in his challenging new position.

We would like to thank Chantal Jacot for her superb commitment both within and on behalf of the Intercantonal Fire Academy ifa, and wish her all the best, every success and fulfilment in her new post.

The Swiss championships were won by the Hirschthal 1 youth fire brigade from the town of Hirschthal. We congratulate them sincerely on winning this title and would also like to thank all those who took part, the sponsors and helpers.

These modules take the form of small trolleys which are equipped appropriately for the particular training exercise. A total of 13 of these modules is available at ifa, each equipped differently, for example with technical equipment, breathing apparatus, fire fighting kits, equipment for search and rescue operations or for communications. This means the instructor always has all the equipment he needs to hand.

We thank Rolf Bill for his commitment to the Intercantonal Fire Academy ifa and wish him all the best and every success in his new job.

The management is convinced that, in Markus Vogt, they have found a highly suitable personality for the position of Training Manager. They wish him a great start and every success in his new job.

As well as the competitions on the Saturday, an attractive supporting programme including evening entertainment will be provided. All participants have the option of staying overnight in the immediate vicinity free-of-charge, to then set off home on Sunday after a hearty breakfast.

Young people from the years 1993 - 1999 which belong to a youth fire service can take part in the competitions. Detailed information about the competitions and supporting programme, as well as the registration form can be found here

We are very much looking forward to being able to host the Swiss Youth Fire Brigade Championships this year and in so doing making a contribution towards encouraging the firefighters of tomorrow.

Some training is necessary to be able to operate the giant cleaning machines safely. It is for this reason that each year ten men travel to Balsthal and practise handling their heavy equipment in the tunnel training facilities. The advantages are clear: expensive tunnel closures for training involving people and equipment can be avoided and traffic flow is not unnecessarily interrupted.

Two vehicles - two areas of operations: One of the vehicles in use has been specially designed for exclusively cleaning lamps in the tunnel. The other machine cleans the walls using rotating brushes. Although the training in Balsthal was carried out with water and no soap, it is still true to say: "A clean sweep all round".