State Fire Service (, PSP) is a professional

fire fighting Firefighting is a profession aimed at controlling and extinguishing fire. A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter or fireman. Firefighters typically undergo a high degree of technical training. This involves structural fir ...

service in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. It is subordinate to the Polish Ministry of Interior and Administration. The modern State Fire Service is based on the 1992 legislation. State Fire Service covers the entire territory of Poland. In all the second-level units of local government and administration in Poland -

powiat A ''powiat'' (; ) is the second-level unit of local government and administration in Poland, equivalent to a county, district or prefecture (Local administrative unit, LAU-1 ormerly Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, NUTS-4 ...

(county, district) -, fire brigades operate district headquarters (''Komenda Powiatowa Państwowej Straży Pożarnej),'' city headquarters in bigger cities ''(Komenda Miejska Państwowej Straży Pożarnej)'' with command posts and dispatch centers alongside one or several fire stations (''Jednostka Ratowniczo-Gaśnicza'' JRG). They are subject to 16 provincial headquarters (''Komenda Wojewódzka Państwowej Straży Pożarnej''). Professional firefighters (PSP) respond immediately after the alarm and are often assisted by volunteers associated in Voluntary Fire Service (''Ochotnicza Straż Pożarna'', OSP) with more than 15,700 fire stations in nearly every bigger settlement.

History

Pursuant to Article 2 of the Act of February 4, 1950. on fire protection and its organization, for the first time in the history of Polish fire protection, the Voivodeship Fire Brigade Headquarters was established. The voivodeship level commands were headed by the Voivodeship Fire Comandants and the commanders of the Warsaw and Łódź fire brigades. These commanders, at the request of the Commander-in-Chief of the Fire Service, were appointed and dismissed (Article 4.2) by the Minister of Public Administration - then competent for internal affairs. Soon, however, the Legislative Sejm passed the Act of April 19, 1950. on changing the organization of the supreme state authorities in the field of municipal management and public administration. This act brought, among others, the abolition of the Ministry of Public Administration and the creation of the Ministry of Municipal Economy in its place. The competences of the new ministry were defined by the Council of Ministers in its regulation of June 3, 1950. They included e.g. matters belonging to the abolished Ministry of Public Administration, and thus in the field of fire protection. In 1972, parallelly with the administrative reform in Poland, field fire brigades, the most visible changes concerned the brigades gathered in the Association of Volunteer Fire Brigades (ZOSP). This was manifested in the creation, or in principle, in the reconstruction of the communal link of this association (Resolution No. 7 of the ZOSP ZG of November 6, 1972 on the appointment of commune boards) and the establishment of the function of the social commander of the commune fire brigade (based on the resolution of the Council of Ministers of September 25, 1974). In 1973 fire brigade commands were subordinated to voivodes, city presidents and heads of communes (). These became units equivalent to the departments of voivodeship offices and poviat level offices. As a result, voivodeship and poviat commanders began to be responsible for the implementation of tasks in the field of fire protection before

voivode Voivode ( ), also spelled voivod, voievod or voevod and also known as vaivode ( ), voivoda, vojvoda, vaivada or wojewoda, is a title denoting a military leader or warlord in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe in use since the Early Mid ...

s, presidents or commune chiefs. These changes entered into force on December 9, 1973. Pursuant to Article 43.3. Act of June 12, 1975. on fire protection, changes were made to the content of Art. 2.3. Decree of December 27, 1974 on the service of fire officers and the procedure for appointing the voivodeship fire brigade commander was specified. It said that the state administration body of the voivodeship level, i.e. the voivode competent for the territory, appointed the voivodeship commander of the fire brigades from among the candidates presented to him by the commander in chief of the fire brigades. The essence of this procedure was the agreement of the parties.

Structure

*National Headquarters of the State Fire Service (

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

) ** Voivodeship Headquarters in

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the List of cities and towns in Poland, tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Biał ...