Danske Beredskaber

Danske Beredskaber is an association of all the municipal emergency units in the country and works to develop and improve emergency preparedness in Denmark. As a unified voice for the municipal and joint municipal emergency services, the association's task is to ensure information, dissemination and understanding of the emergency tasks and challenges we face - both now and in the future.

In early 2016, the association was reorganised from a board to a professional secretariat with a secretary, project staff and a communications department. This was in response to the new emergency services settlement, which merged the country's 87 fire services into 24 larger units. With the larger emergency units comes a natural need for coordinated support and sparring in creating a balanced emergency response.

Danske Beredskaber, formerly known as the 'Association of Municipal Emergency Managers', has existed since 1994 and is an association of the 'Danish Association of Fire Inspectors of 1882' and the 'Association of Civil Defence Leaders in Denmark of 1957'. The association came about in the wake of the 1993 Emergency Preparedness Act, which no longer sought to distinguish between wartime and peacetime preparedness, but instead laid the foundations for the overall preparedness we know today.

The Association's primary members are the 28 emergency units.