Rennes: Firefighters pack their boxes and say goodbye to Saint-Georges and the city center

In the locker room, most of the shelves have already been emptied. Only a few outfits are still hanging on the hangers, for the teams that will be on duty the last night. The shoe polish is open and the many CGT stickers have stuck. On a table, a stuffed fox baptized Gerard is still there. For the rest, the premises of the Saint-Georges barracks are already very empty. Rather normal. Because this Thursday, the historic rescue center in downtown Rennes must move. Oh, he won’t go very far, just two kilometers, opposite the plain of Baud. But for those who worked, slept, and even grew up there, it’s the end of a myth. Accustomed to seeing red trucks rush out between the Saint-Georges swimming pool and the palace of the same name, the people of Rennes also lose a mark. This move was planned for a long time.

Too old, too cramped… Saint-Georges was no longer suitable

A long red and white barrier rises to let the imposing red vehicle enter. The hassle of maneuvering to park it in the middle of an already overcrowded yard. This evening, it will be necessary to fold up its mirrors to be sure of returning it to a decrepit shelter that has become too narrow. One hundred years after welcoming its first firefighters, the Saint-Georges barracks will see them leave forever this Thursday. Considered for years, the move of the downtown rescue center was both feared and expected by the men and women who worked there. “Everything is single-glazed here. So in the summer, we are hot and in the winter we are cold. And we hear everything from the festive evenings in Rennes,” explains Captain Stéphane Picaut. Head of the center for five years, he will not regret “the obsolete toilets” or the incessant maneuvers of vehicles to get everything inside. “Our forest firefighting vehicle was sleeping outside. It had become impossible”.

His colonel goes in the same direction. He has been installed for more than two years in the new barracks of Moulin de Joué which will welcome the 140 firefighters of Rennes Saint-Georges this Thursday. “When the first firefighters arrived, there were still horses and the trucks were half the size of today. Whole families were living here, they had to be housed,” says Louis-Marie Daoudal. Some men have spent their entire careers in Saint-Georges, living the full brunt of the great dramas of the city center such as the tragic fire in the Parliament of Brittany in 1994. “There will be an emotion when leaving. There is a soul here. It will be necessary to recreate an esprit de corps in a new place, ”warns the head of the center.

Moving a fire station, how is it?

It’s been a while since they made their boxes. Every day, they filled three trucks to transport their archives, furniture, and equipment to the new site bordered by the Vilaine. In the empty offices, the boxes are gradually disappearing, taken away by a moving company. All the equipment has already been transferred, only the outfits of the night guards have remained. “They will leave with the minimum on Thursday for a parade in the streets of Rennes”, explains Commander Picaut.

About fifteen vehicles, some of which are very old models, will be paraded this Thursday morning in the historic center, passing near the station, at République, at the Town Hall before a compulsory passage in front of the parliament. “We don’t want to go on the sly because we are part of the decor. It will be like a goodbye, ”continues the head of the center.

For emergency services and fires, what does it change?

“In practice, it doesn’t change anything. There is little or no impact on the response time in the city center,” assures Colonel Daoudal. Rescue and fire vehicles will be able to use the lanes dedicated to buses and therefore arrive very quickly in the historic center, which is so fragile in the event of a fire. “The two more minutes in the truck, we will use them to think about how to position our machines”, assures the colonel.

By moving their barracks a little further east, the firefighters are also getting closer to new residential areas such as the plain of Baud or ViaSilva. “Rennes is lucky to have three rescue centers. When we look at the map of the city, we see that they are now better distributed, ”assures the head of the center.