Pfinztal Fire Department

Hygienic cleaning and disinfection of BA masks is a good way to encourage volunteering. Frank Bauer is very clear about that. He is in charge of four local fire departments in the fire service sector that covers the German municipality of Pfinztal in Baden-Württemberg, and he knows what potential volunteers are looking for: "If you want people to get involved as volunteer firefighters you need to make their work as easy as possible." In Pfinztal they make work in the BA cleaning room easier by using a TopClean M cleaning and disinfection appliance. Equipment manager Marco Sandrini must do a good, clean job to satisfy the 200-odd firefighters who rely on the firefighting gear he maintains.

He is responsible for cleaning and disinfecting 400 breathing apparatus masks and 150 regulators a year – and the TopClean M has brought his facilities right up to date: "It used to take us about two hours to get 12 masks properly and hygienically clean," the young firefighter recalls. "Now we get four masks done in just six to ten minutes!" The old method also required a manual dip tank and ultrasound treatment, which took its toll on the material and meant that the process could not be reliably reproduced. Nowadays the machine's temperature monitoring system with independent electronic sensors takes charge of ensuring perfectly hygienic disinfection results. And there's one other key thing that has changed: Marco Sandrini gets his work done a lot quicker. And who ever said that volunteering has to eat up all your spare time?

Pfinztal Fire Department