120 mph fire engine at Yelverton!
In a recent radio interview the fire & rescue service's spokesperson was trying to defend replacing proper fire engines with less effective Rapid Intervention Vehicles. He gave the example of Princetown, which is to receive a RIV that only has a short ladder, and claimed that the nearest station with a longer ladder was "only 8 minutes away".The nearest station is Yelverton, which is 6 miles away. Call handling time and the time the on call firefighters take to reach the station takes up around 5 minutes, which leaves just 3 minutes to travel 6 miles! So for the claim to be accurate, the Yelverton fire engine would have to achieve an average speed of 120 mph!
Unsubstantiated statements aren't convincing the public,
so now they resort to utterly ridiculous claims.
How long will those trapped really have to wait?
It also raises questions about the claim that there will "always be a longer ladder a minimum of 20 minutes away". If that is the minimum, how long is the maximum time it will take for a longer ladder to arrive? Is it 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour, or more?
Proper fire engine availability in coastal North Devon
40% of Fire Engines had no crew
The reality is that 20 minutes is optimistic and seems to be based on the assumption that all the service's fire engines will always be available. A recent snapshot of crewing shortages in Devon & Somerset showed that a total of 48 fire engines were not available. That included 18 fire stations with no fire engine at all.
Snapshot of actual fire engines available in coastal North Devon
There are times when more fire engines are available, but also times when availability is worse. The end result is that the 'within 20 minutes' claim, like the service's target response times, will often not be achieved.
Does smaller justify less capable?
Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service keep claiming that with the smaller RIVs they will be able to reach places they couldn't before. Again, that is not true. They have a number of these smaller vehicles that can reach places even the RIVs cannot.
Not only much smaller than the RIVs but, unlike the RIVs, they also have four-wheel drive so can go off road. They can accompany fully equipped fire engines to incidents and transport crew and equipment to any locations that the fire engine cannot reach.
It should also be noted that the poorly equipped RIVs are about the size of fully equipped fire engines that were used in Devon a few years ago. In fact those fire engines were slightly narrower than the RIVs and had a better turning circle.
Fully equipped, but narrower than the RIV
The service will no doubt say that these are no longer made, but it does show that smaller does not have to mean less well equipped. Modern manufacturers, using the latest materials and clever equipment stowage, can provide fully equipped vehicles that take up no more room on the road than the RIV.
No one expects a tradesperson to work with only half their tools,
so why force firefighters to cope without the right equipment?
No comments:
Post a Comment