The Council of Majorca is introducing new rules for the Majorca Fire Brigade's prevention and rescue service. The councillor local development, Joan Font, stresses that these rules don't in any way affect the fire service's emergency operations; they are to do with issues such as rescuing cats from trees and removing bee nests.
The rules are due to come into effect in the next couple of months, and they will apply to the five municipalities in Majorca (excluding Palma, which has its own fire brigade) with populations over 20,000 - Calvia, Inca, Llucmajor, Manacor and Marratxi.
In 2015, the Council decided to charge these municipalities 0.5% of their budgets for the brigade's prevention and rescue service. Calvia, Llucmajor and Manacor have been paying this, but Inca and Marratxi have not been. Margalida Roig, a councillor with the opposition Partido Popular, says that because these two municipalities have not been paying, there have been several demands made at council meetings in order to enforce the payments. There is, she adds, no specific ordinance to make them pay.
Font admits that this has been the case. "We can't oblige them to pay, as we don't have the tool to make them pay." Now, therefore, the Council is to get the necessary legal tool.
In Inca, a council meeting approved the non-payment, while Marratxi town hall has argued that it would be better financially for it to use services from Palma's brigade. Font explains that the Council and Palma town hall are due to come to an agreement which will mean that Marratxi is covered by the Council's fire brigade.
* In 2017, the Majorca Fire Brigade was called out on 5,403 occasions. The five municipalities with more than 20,000 people accounted for 2,198 of these. Calvia, the largest of these municipalities in terms of population, had the greatest requirement - 697. Of all these operations, 2,080 were for fires; 1,240 were for rescues; 1,690 were for some form of clean-up; and 393 were preventive.