Jan Michel <j...@mueschelsoft.de> writes: > On 10.11.19 13:51, Dave F via Tagging wrote: >> Hi >> >> Simple question (which I presume has been previously discussed) : >> >> Why the different key tags to describe what are essentially >> synonymous entities? > > One of them takes care to put out fires, the other transports you to > hospital. There are regions where the two are mostly combined, but in > other places these are completly separate organizations. > > E.g. in Germany they are mostly combined in the larger cities, but > usually separated in smaller towns. That's related to having > professional fire fighters and stations that are always manned > compared to volunteers who have to gather first.
The sometimes-together sometimes-separate notion is also true in the US. Typically, a Fire Department (sometimes called Fire Rescue) will also operate ambulances. Often these are painted like fire trucks, and the staff are qualified as both firefighters and EMTs, employed as firefighers, and in the IAFF/etc. Almost always the station that houses an ambulance has other fire equipment and thus these are "fire stations". These ambulances operate on the FD radio frequencies and are dispatched as fire units. Sometimes, these ambulances are Advanced Life Support (ALS), also called paramedics. When operated by fire departments, staff are typically both firefighers and EMT-P. Fairly typically, there are separate non-transporting paramedic units, basically 2 EMT-Ps with gear in an SUV. These are often not operated by fire departments, and the people are EMT-P but usually not trained as firefighters (unless they have one job with a FD and one with an ambulance company, not so unusual). In some towns, the fire department does fire fighting and "heavy rescue"/"technical rescue" but not ambulances and they arrange with ambulance companies for ambulance and paramedic services. Not that you brought this up, but there are also fire department units called "Rescue" that are big trucks with specialized equipment for jacking up cars to get people out from under them, cutting them out of cars, ropes for high places, confined space rescue, etc. In some places, and in my experience this is in larger cities only (e.g, Boston), there is a separate "Emergency Medical Services" department which staffs ambulances and paramedic units. In NYC, it's a separate part of the fire department. The staff are not firefighters and wear different uniforms. In Worcester, it's run by a university-associated hospital and acts like a city EMS department but technically is contracted. The place where those ambulances are staged would not be called "fire station". So I agree these tags should be kept separate. As for emergency= and amenity=, that's a historical artifact and doesn't matter. _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
