Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service shooting themselves in the foot

Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service think that introducing Rapid Intervention Vehicles (RIVs) and sending them to emergencies with less than four firefighters will improve the service’s response times.

Yet there are many flaws in this idea, not least the long term effect it may have on the recruitment and retention of on call firefighters. Something Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service has clearly not considered.

To illustrate this, let’s look at the questions a potential recruit ought to ask before joining a station with a Rapid Intervention Vehicle, together with the candid answers a senior officer should give:

"What will I be expected to do?"

"When you are on call, you will need to leave home, or work, at a moments notice to respond to a wide range of fires and other emergencies."

"I expect you will provide the best equipped type of fire engine to help me do the job safely and effectively?"

"No, to save money we are replacing many well equipped fire engines with RIVs that carry less equipment and much less water. That unfortunately means you will run out of water quicker."

"But we can still get water from hydrants can’t we?"

"Sometimes, but we have cut the amount of hose on RIVs, so unless the hydrant is very near you will be left with no water to fight the fire."

"But if there is a stream, pond or swimming pool nearby we can get water from there can’t we?"

"Only if your RIV can get very close to the water. If not, you will have to wait until a portable pump arrives from another station."

"Will we have foam for tackling oil and petrol fires?"

"No, you will have to wait until help arrives from another station."

"Will we have ladders to help us rescue people and extinguish fires?"

"Yes, provided that the building is not too high and you don’t need to get on the roof. If you need a 10.5 or 13.5 metre ladder, or a roof ladder, then you will have to wait until help arrives from another station."

"Will we have other essential equipment?"

"A little, but for some essential equipment you will have to wait for it to arrive from one of the increasingly few fire stations that still have proper fire engines."

"When you say help arrives from another station, how quickly will that help arrive?"

"You may have heard some of my colleagues talk about twenty minutes, and one even suggested ten minutes, which is highly unlikely for most rural stations. The truth is that it could be quite a while, especially when the next nearest station is unavailable because they don’t have a crew, or the crew is attending another incident." 

An illustration of poor availability that delays help arriving

"I will always have several experienced firefighters to support me won't I?"

"Sometimes, but our latest cunning plan is to send you out with less colleagues on the crew than are needed to enable you to take safe and effective action at anything other than very small emergencies."

"Will I still be able to go in to buildings wearing breathing apparatus to rescue people?"

"No, you will have to wait until help arrives . It would be far too dangerous to go in without support."  

"But if people see a trained firefighter not going in, they will be angry and think I am a coward."

"Yes, but we will issue a statement saying you were not allowed to do that."

"They may still give me grief on social media and when I see them in the street."

"Yes, but you did agree to put yourself in this position."

"Why are you taking these shortcuts?"

"We have failed to recruit and retain enough firefighters to properly crew our fire engines, so if we send a couple of firefighters on the RIV we might fool the public in to believing we are doing our job properly."

"But what about safety legislation?"

"There is no safe system of work for less than four firefighters, so we leave it up to you to ‘volunteer’ to operate with less."

"Doesn’t that leave me at greater risk?"

"Well most firefighters, fire & rescue services, former Home Office inspectors and the unions think so, but we just want to get a vehicle to incidents so we can claim we met our response time."

"So those unsafe systems might result in me suffering serious injury or death?"

"Well yes, but don’t worry if that happens your officer-in-charge is likely to be disciplined or prosecuted and in the worst case might be sent to prison for manslaughter."

"Might I be prosecuted under the Health & Safety at Work Act?"

"Well the legislation does oblige you to take care of your own health and safety and that of others who may be affected by what you do. So if you do something that puts anyone in danger, then you could be."

"Would the Fire Authority be prosecuted?"

"Well possibly, but we will put as much blame as possible on the crew for taking unnecessary risks and not assessing the situation properly. In any case, if we did end up being fined we aren't worried as it will be taxpayers footing the bill."

"Don’t you as senior managers worry about that?"

"Not really, we are keeping our fingers crossed and hope that by the time something serious does go wrong we will have retired or moved to another fire & rescue service."

"So, do you still want to join?"