Not unique to Germany. Where I lived in Germany (city of ~300k) the next paid fire brigade was a ways off from our suburb. However, as it was explained to me,

Not unique to Germany. Where I lived in Germany (city of ~300k) the next paid fire brigade was a ways off from our suburb. However, as it was explained to me, house building permits aren't issued if the next paid fire station is too far away (dunno what the time limit is) and volunteer forces don't count into that radius. However we had a volunteer fire brigade right smack middle of town (this isn't the sort of planned American suburb, this was a regular town founded around the year 1100 and the larger city grew into/around it). 3 fire trucks for ~6k inhabitants. 2 minute drive to us. Closest regular fire brigade would have been about a 7 minute drive but part of a rural town 'next door', closest actual city fire station ~15 minutes. Where I live now in Canada (town of ~20k and growing) it's mainly a volunteer force. We have 6 fire engines + paramedic. There are IIRC a couple of paid firefighters always in the station just in case and the rest are volunteers that are at max allowed to live/work about a 10 minute (IIRC) drive from the station. Been a while since the open house visit. Next town over with a paid fire brigade is about a 12 minute drive from here while the local fire station is a 2 minute drive (without sirens blazing :)) I think they have a good chance of being faster or on par. On the other hand, that 300k town had its own paramedic services helicopter. Had to unfortunately "make use" of that once. Awesome experience (apart from the medical emergency part). But if you have a medical emergency going on and you start hearing that chopper way before you hear sirens, it's just awesome! Where I live now (in a millions of people metro area, there is no medical helicopter service whatsoever and traffic is really really bad.