Qendrim Kala works in the municipality of Urdorf in Switzerland, where he serves as a volunteer firefighter. He donated 41 sets of professional fire-resistant protective equipment to the Territorial Fire Brigade in Struga - his home town.

Forty-one sets. That is not a symbolic gesture, that is kit for an entire shift and then some. A fire-resistant protective suit is not something you pick up with loose change - it is the kind of line item that sits on municipal budgets for years under the heading of when the money turns up.

Struga's mayor, Mendi Qira, expressed gratitude and sent his congratulations to all our people who live outside the country and do not forget where they come from. The message accompanying the donation said such examples prove the strong bond between those who left and their home town.

A lovely story with an uncomfortable backdrop

All of it is true. And still, what stays between the lines of the press release deserves saying out loud: the protective equipment of a territorial fire brigade in Macedonia arrived because one man from Urdorf decided to buy it.

Not through a budget line. Not through an equipment programme. Not through an agreement with the Crisis Management Centre, which declared a thirty-day state of crisis this summer because of the fires. But because one firefighter in Switzerland thought about his colleagues back home.

That is a fine thing. It is also a data point about the state of fire protection here - one that no official statement will ever phrase this directly.

The people who walk into a fire to pull someone out are waiting for gear from people who once lived on the same street. Until then, they work with what they have.

Kala was wished success in his professional and personal life, with the hope that positive examples like this will continue. The hope is understandable. The question is whether that hope is a plan - or whether it is all we have.