Putting out an outbuilding fire.
The Ruzsa municipality and our supporters are behind us, and about 10 million forints (≈ €25,000) is in place. That buys an old, basic engine. A reliable one costs more, and every euro you add brings it closer. It is the engine we will take out on our days off whenever there is trouble.
Most of our active members serve as professionals at the Ruzsa station or in Szeged. On their days off they keep their phones on: when the alarm goes, they come.
We are proud of this: Ruzsa’s professional fire station started with our people in 2012. The municipality provided the station building and the fire engine, our association provided the firefighters, who became the station’s professional crew and have protected the area ever since.
Hungarian fire protection stands on three legs: the state professional service, municipal fire brigades and volunteer associations like ours. If the volunteer leg gives way, the stool tips over. In Ruzsa we share one fire station with the professional unit, and our job is to bring the water. Out among the scattered farmsteads there are no hydrants, so all you have is what is in the tank.
When our engine is standing, the professional unit still turns out — the village is never left without cover. And when trouble strikes elsewhere, we go too: at the disaster-management authority's request we turn out beyond Ruzsa, as we did in the 2019 Szeged storm.
At work: after an outbuilding fire
Photos: members of the brigade.
Ruzsa lies west of Szeged, in the south of the Homokhátság sandlands between the Danube and the Tisza — one of the hottest, driest parts of Hungary. Szeged averages 534 mm of rain a year, the bottom of the national 500–800 mm band. Fields, acacia stands, patches of forest and scattered farms alternate. In summer the stubble, the forest edges and the tree lines catch fire, and the smoke hangs over the village. There are no hydrants among the farms: we bring the water with us, in the tank of our fire engine.
And it isn't only fires. Besides the heat, storms keep us busy too: we are called out to fallen trees and other storm damage. We also respond to medical emergencies, including alerts from Gondosóra, Hungary's personal emergency alarm programme.
Szeged
Subotica
Mórahalom
Ásotthalom
Üllés
Pusztamérges
Öttömös
Zsombó
Tompa
Kelebia
Kiskunhalas
Hungarian–Serbian border
84.68 km²
Ruzsa
On this terrain the water isn't in a hydrant — it's with us, in the tank. How big a tank we arrive with depends on what we raise. Our current fire engine is 61 years old.
The map is an illustration. Land cover, administrative borders: © OpenStreetMap contributors. The Homokhátság outline is approximate. Climate data: Hungarian Meteorological Service (met.hu).
Since 1995, this has been our only fire engine: a 1965 Magirus-Deutz that came to us from Germany. Our members keep it running themselves. They weld the tank and hunt down parts abroad, yet every year it spends longer off the road. While it stands in the station, we cannot turn out, and the area has one deployable fire engine fewer.
Each time, our members got it running again on their own, but a 61‑year‑old fire engine can only be patched up for so long.
There are years when we can only put it into service every second day.
What we need now is a sound, used fire engine of a kind our members know and can repair — not a brand-new one.
A brand-new fire engine costs over 100 million forints (≈ €250,000) — a good used one suits us fine. Thanks to our municipality and our supporters, about 10 million forints (≈ €25,000) is in place — and today that kind of money barely buys a worthwhile replacement: used engines are expensive too, and equipment costs extra on top. That is why we climb a ladder: each further million forints (≈ €2,500) buys one step better.
Amounts in Hungarian forints; 1 M Ft ≈ €2,500.
A used, all-wheel-drive fire engine that can turn out. It will be an older one with a tank of about 2,500 litres, and almost nothing will be left for equipment.
A reserve for registration in Hungary and an inspection, plus hoses, nozzles and basic kit. Fire engines from abroad are often sold empty, so this step pays for what makes one deployable.
A vehicle from the 2000s, with fewer kilometres and its papers in order. It is less likely to stand idle for months, as the old one did for 163 days in 2022.
A tank of 4,000–5,000 litres. There are no hydrants out on the farms, so a bigger tank means fewer trips to refill and more water on the fire.
A younger, well-kept municipal vehicle with a 4,000–5,000-litre tank, a nine-seat crew cab and full equipment, plus a reserve for repairs.
Protective gear, spare parts and the first years of running costs, so that fuel and insurance bills do not keep the new fire engine in the station.
The steps show vehicle categories rather than a specific advert. The actual fire engine depends on what is for sale and on a technical inspection, and we will report on the choice openly.
A total that lands between two steps still counts, because every extra forint goes into a better vehicle or more equipment.
Purpose of the appeal: buying, preparing and equipping a new fire engine operated by the brigade; anything left over goes to its first years of running costs. We report publicly on every forint.
Whether you live in a Hungarian village or city, or anywhere abroad, one transfer or one share puts you on our next call-out. We report publicly on every forint and every euro.
Transfer any amount to the brigade's account. Please use the reference ADOMANY FECSKENDO (“donation for the fire engine”) so that we can book every euro to this purpose. If you would like your name on the plaque, add it after the reference, e.g. ADOMANY FECSKENDO, TABLA: Anna Weber, Vienna.
If your brigade is replacing hoses, nozzles or protective gear, your old kit in good condition helps us as much as money. German brigades have sent us equipment this way before.
Write to us: ruzsaote@gmail.com
Wherever your company is based, you can help with money, fuel, spare parts or expertise. With your consent, we thank our supporters by name.
Our association does not have public-benefit status, so we cannot issue a tax-deductible receipt; we do issue a confirmation of the donation.
If you would rather give cash, you can hand it over in person in Ruzsa: Siposné Rózsa Anita receives it on behalf of the brigade. You get a receipt at the handover and the money goes straight onto the campaign account.
For larger amounts and company support we ask you to transfer instead, so it stays traceable for you too.
Follow and share our Facebook page. If you share it, people we could never reach on our own will hear about us.
As a thank-you, your name rides with us too: see the supporters' plaque ↓
With your consent, we put your name on the supporters' plaque in the crew cab of the new fire engine, whatever the amount, and it goes with us to every alarm. After the handover we invite our supporters to an open day with a fire-safety demonstration, as our thank-you.
This is only a preview: the name is not sent or stored anywhere.
The plaque design is an illustration; the sample names are invented. “Köszönjük!” is Hungarian for “Thank you!”. We put no advertising on the outside of the vehicle.
Your name goes on the plaque only if you ask for it: add it to the transfer reference, or email us at ruzsaote@gmail.com. Please send the photo of your signature there too. Logo placement only under a sponsorship agreement, against an invoice.
The brigade was founded in the summer of 1950 and has worked without a break ever since. From the hand pump to the Magirus, the village and our members raised the money for every piece of equipment we have.
Help keeps coming from abroad. Our German comrades support us with equipment, and the Magirus itself came from Germany. Equipment cannot stand in for the fire engine, though, and the engine is what we now have to raise the money for.
Ruzsa and Petersaurach in Middle Franconia are official partner towns (source: the Bavarian interior ministry's register of town partnerships). The link was started by the reservists of the two communities, and the volunteer firefighters have been comrades for years. We visit each other regularly; most recently they were our guests at the Ruzsa firefighting competition this June. Over the years they have brought turnout gear and equipment again and again. On their first visit they literally dressed our brigade.
For 76 years we have turned out when there is trouble in Ruzsa and the villages around it. We have the skills and the will to keep going, and two supporters have stepped in. The engine we ride in next depends on you as well.