Hovedstadsmetropolens brand- og ambulancevæsen. Kommunale og private aktører i lyset af regionale udfordringer siden 1850

Fra natvægterstaten i den sidste halvdel af 1800-tallet og frem til efterkrigstidens velfærdstat blev det private initiativs aktionsfelt indsnævret stadig mere. Det gjaldt bl.a. på velfærdsområdet, den kollektive trafik og forsyningssektoren. Som en basal samfundstjeneste har brand- og ambulancetjenesten stedse været en kommunal myndighedsopgave, men gennem 1900-tallet blev den i stigende grad overladt til private aktører. Denne artikel belyser, hvordan dette aktørmønster satte sig igennem i hovedstadsmetropolen, og hvorledes brand- og ambulancevæsenets kom til at udgøre en blandt stadig flere udfordringer, som metropolen som en byregion kom til at stå overfor i århundredet. --- The History of the Capital Metropolitan Fire and Ambulance Service in the Copenhagen-area since 1850 The history of the capital metropolitan fire and ambulance service since the mid-19th century became a story that came to play on three simultaneous levels: Although the emerging welfare state settled on the solution of increasingly fundamental societal tasks throughout the 20th century, it did not apply to the fire extinguishing service in the capital metropolis and elsewhere in the country. It changed from the 20s to a greater extent to the private initiative, the country's two private rescue corps, until the service in the first post-war period found its fairly fixed distribution. Falck's Rescue Corps thus came to perform the service in significant parts of the capital metropolitan suburbs and catchment areas, while the municipal fire departments remained dominant in the places where they had built up consolidated and thus competitive fire services: The Capital, on the inner West and Amager, and in the northern suburbs of Gentofte. The ambulance service to and from the capital metropolitan hospitals started from the middle of the 19th century as a private haulage mission. For a short period of time it was handed over to charities, and then continued on a private initiative via the country's two rescue corps and then Falck alone. A consequence of the hospital service in the majority of the city region was left to the county municipalities, and these could neither or would take on this additional operational task. Where the municipal fire service had efficient and competitive ambulance services, however, this was municipal-run. It concerned the Capital, Gentofte and Roskilde with the hinterland While the capital municipalities and county municipalities' responsibility for the ambul