Increases to fees charged by Helsinki City Rescue Department

Due to the wellbeing services county reform, all wellbeing services counties need to review their income from fees.

The fees paid to the rescue departments do not correlate with the actual costs at the moment. Due to the wellbeing services county reform, all wellbeing services counties need to review their income from fees, i.e. the amounts and grounds for rescue services’ customer fees.

Reviewing the grounds for payments is in line with the action plan outlined in the National strategic objectives for organising rescue services in 2023–2026. The grounds for payment will be harmonised at the national level, and in the future the fees for different activities and automatic fire alarms malfunctioning will be based on uniform criteria and cost correlation. The fees will be based on the Rescue Act.

As far as rescue services are concerned, in practice this means that the total working time spent on monitoring, and not just the time spent at the site, will be taken into account in the grounds for payment. Furthermore, we will also introduce some new services that are subject to a fee, which have previously been free of charge.

For example, the payment for automatic fire alarms malfunctioning repeatedly (ERHE payments) and some of the monitoring fees will be increased. ERHE payments are applied to fire alarms malfunctioning repeatedly. An alarm is considered recurring as of the third ERHE assignment within a year. Fire alarm locations will be contacted starting from the first false fire alarm, and a written request to correct the fire alarm will be recorded for the location and they will be provided with some time to carry out the repair after the second false fire alarm.

We strive to reduce the number of false fire alarms through guidance and advice. ERHE payments are not charged from citizens; instead, they are charged from locations with fire alarm devices connected to the emergency response centre in public spaces and companies.

The reform is based on national preparation work in cooperation with various wellbeing services counties. The rescue departments' partnership network has drafted a guidebook on drawing up the rates for accident prevention by rescue departments in wellbeing services counties to support the preparation work. However, each wellbeing services county decides on the payments and grounds for payments independently.

The new fees are listed hereFile opens in a new tab (in Finnish).

For additional information, please contact:
Head of Risk Management, Pekka Itkonen, +358 9 310 30037, pekka.itkonen@hel.fi
Rescue Commander Jani Pitkänen, +358 50 433 6905, jani.pitkanen@hel.fi