Montenegrin firefighters - heroes with full hearts and empty pockets

While this summer, Montenegro was almost literally a land of fire, without a drop of rain, where fires were raging in almost every part of its territory, all eyes were on the firefighters.

Cameras captured almost surreal scenes of their struggle with fire and smoke and moments of brief respite after numerous sleepless nights.

They are talked about as heroes, professionals dedicated to their work, but also people with full hearts and empty pockets.

The penetrating sirens of a convoy of red vehicles with numerous firefighting teams rushing to the location where the fire broke out is a sound that the citizens of Montenegro have become more accustomed to this summer than ever.

Every day they witnessed the exploits of people in dark blue uniforms in the fight against the flaming element that spread for days in Luštica on the coast, the hills around Podgorica or the slopes of Lovcen.

It was the fires around the Montenegrin capital that lasted the longest and only yesterday's downpour put an end to the fight with the fire, in which bronze firefighters from the entire country, members of the army, local residents, and volunteers were involved.

Predrag Moštrokol, the commander of the Cetinje protection and rescue service, experienced this firsthand, as he collapsed from fatigue and ended up in the hospital.

Even then, as he points out in an interview with Radio Free Europe (RSE), he did not think about the difficulty of the work he was doing.

"The only thing that was going through my head was that my people were on the ground and I was not among them. Knowing the burden they carry and the problems they face. I had a case where three firefighters were surrounded by fire from all sides within a minute side. They were in a circle. All the firefighters of Montenegro were like one house, as if they were all in one unit," says Moštrokol.

TV Vijesti journalist Danijela Lasica was side by side with the firefighters in the area of ​​Cetinje and witnessed their tenacious resistance to the elements of fire. After all, summing up her impressions, she remembered what the firefighters of the Croatian Makarska wrote on their internet status this summer.

"Our matches do not end with gold medals or trophies, nor do we ask for them. We just want a little respect for us, our colleagues and our profession. And then I asked myself - do we in Montenegro respect the firefighters? If we let them fall on us from fatigue because they are forced to defend our properties, our houses, our lives for days. If we let them work very often in cotton shirts and old shoes, without protective helmets and masks. And all this for a salary of 400 euros. Or, whether we respect them if we hear comments after these that they are heroes, those others who say: 'Come on rich people, they work there for two months in the summer and then rest for the whole year,'" says Lasica.

The earnings of about 550 firefighters in Montenegro range from 260 euros to 440 euros. But even that many are not regular, so in some municipalities, especially in the north of the country, they are delayed by half a year. Therefore, this year, for the first time, the Government decided to reward each firefighter on the ground with 400 euros for what they described as an exceptionally professional relationship. And that they don't need eulogies, nor the media erecting a monument to their courage, but a realistic evaluation of their efforts and an adequate salary, emphasizes the president of the professional union of firefighters at the Union of Free Trade Unions, Predrag Milikić, who, as he emphasizes, has been fighting for their rights and just status for ten years.

"Until now, they didn't recognize us, and luckily this time the government recognized us. But that can't be rewarded with one-time help. One-time doesn't mean anything to us. It means for us to take the place that belongs to us in this country. We are the only people and the only service from which everyone is fleeing. There is no army, no police, no ambulance, no one who enters where we enter and where everyone flees from. You yourself know what happened in America, how many firefighters entered to put out the fire in that building there the rest. That's how we enter. We don't even know if there are, say, gas bottles there or not. Every time we enter is risky," says Milikić.

How important it is for a firefighter to get the grateful place in society that belongs to him, was best shown by the second man of the United States of America, Mike Pence, who, in his busy schedule of a recent short visit to Montenegro, found time to meet and take photos with the commander of the Protection Service and of saving the Capital City by Andrija Čađenović.

Is the society in Montenegro sufficiently informed about the work of firefighters, who do not only put out fires, asks journalist Lasica.

"That they are the ones who first arrive at the scene of a traffic accident, and we know how many of them there are in Montenegro, that each of them carries in their heads images of those killed and injured in those accidents. And yet, on the other hand, we also call them to clear the snow for us from the roof, take down a cat from a nearby tree or decorate the city for a holiday. That's why I think that the adequate response, if we want to respect and really value them as we should, is to pay them what they deserve and give them the working conditions they need. Let's leave the medals for some other heroes," Danijela Lasica points out.

Finally, let's return to the hero from the beginning of the text, Predrag Moštrokol, whose wishes are quite simple.

"That this work should be appreciated. That people should respect the firefighters. That people should recognize our efforts. It seems to me that everyone who had fires in their territory became aware that we put our lives on the line to save someone else's life, someone else's good. Because others are running away from the fire and we are going towards it," Commander Moštrokol concludes.