Even today, I try to be helpful as much as my mind and strength allow, I don’t dwell on the past
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Lubomír Spálenka was born on June 30, 1950, in Old Řepy to a working-class family. After elementary school, he trained as a machine fitter at Stavební stroje in Zličín, where he worked as a grader repairman and later as a professional driver. In August 1968, he and his friends turned the direction signs in Řepy, and his mother had to run from the Russian soldiers. In the 1970s, he joined the volunteer fire department in Řepy, serving as its commander for forty years. In the summer of 1977, he helped extinguish a fire in a gasoline tanker in Prague’s Na Beránku district, which was the biggest operation of his life. In November 1989, he took part in a demonstration on Wenceslas Square, but he was not satisfied with the post-revolutionary situation. In the early 1990s, he started his own business, but continued to lead the Řepy volunteer fire department. In 1997, they helped during the floods in Uherské Hradiště, and in the summer of 2002, during the Prague floods, he coordinated volunteer firefighting units from Prague and the surrounding area for three weeks. In 2014, he ceremoniously opened a new fire station in Řepy. He worked as a fire chief until he was 70, but he continues to help educate young people and organize firefighting competitions and memorials. In 2025, he lived in Řepy.
