Qendrim Kala works in the Municipality of Urdorf in Switzerland. He is also a volunteer firefighter there. He donated 41 sets of professional fire-resistant protective equipment to the Territorial Fire Brigade in Struga. Not one set, not five - forty-one.

Read that again and ask yourself what it means. It means that until now the firefighters in Struga have been working with equipment that somebody in Switzerland judged had to be replaced. It means a man who lives and earns in another country worked out what protecting a life costs, paid for it, and sent it to his home town.

The mayor of Struga, Mendi Qira, expressed gratitude and said such examples prove the strong bond between people living abroad and their home region. That is true and well put. But gratitude is not a budget line.

The question left hanging is simple: what is the annual budget for protective equipment at the Territorial Fire Brigade in Struga? If the answer is that it's sufficient, why were 41 sets needed from Switzerland? If the answer is that it isn't sufficient, why not?

This summer Macedonian firefighters are going out twenty times a day to fires across the country, in temperatures that are at the limit of endurance even without a fire. Every set of fire-resistant equipment stands between a person and a burn.

Qendrim Kala finished his shift in Urdorf, and then finished the job somebody else in Skopje owed. This isn't a story about generosity. It's a story about a gap that somebody else filled.