Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service still living up to their new name

Well sorry Peter Bond, I don't think anyone believes that closing 8 fire stations, cutting 16 fire engines, 
cutting between 200 and 250 firefighter posts, mothballing 8 or 14 fire engines during the day, 
and reallocating just one fire engine will make anything better.

Vital information missing from Chief Fire Officer's report

The Chief Fire Officer's report to the Fire Authority mentions the Fire Services Emergency Cover Toolkit, which is used to model the effects of any resource changes, but he has not included the all important results. Used properly, the modelling can be used to compare the effects of each option with current figures for deaths and property damage, so that the consequences of change are fully understood. Figures can be produced to show increases or decreases for the service as a whole and for each station area.

Other Chief Fire Officers have tried to bury, or make difficult to understand, the extra death and increased property damage results from this modelling, but Lee Howell seems to be the first to try and keep them secret. It is not acceptable to hide them from the public and from Fire Authority Members.

The report also misleads by not giving the full figures for each station’s workload, which means the full extent of the consequences is hidden. Figures for incidents attended in other station areas, attendance at incidents as relief crew, standbys at other stations and co-responder calls should be included in all the tables. 

Much is made in the report of prevention activity, but no mention is made of how much prevention and community safety activity will be lost as a result of the cuts at affected stations. Attendance at community events, visits to schools etc., are valuable prevention and safety opportunities. That loss needs to be set against any gain that may, or may not, result from some of the changes. A significant increase in prevention activity may be hoped for, but the report is lacking in detail of how that will be achieved and at what cost.

Strange Logic 

Some of the claimed figures in the report seem illogical. For example, in option 1, they claim closing 8 fire stations and removing over 90 firefighter posts will save money. I understand that, but how will that also increase Fire Safety Checks by over 3,000? Saying “Potential increase” in Fire Safety Checks is not good enough, some detail and costings must be provided to support the figures. 

The concept of prevention and protection activity making everyone safer is an attractive one, but doing so by reducing response resources, and thereby increasing response times, is foolhardy. There is no evidence that increasing prevention and protection activity will save lives, but plenty of evidence that longer response times increase the number of deaths and the cost of property damage. We hope prevention will save lives, but it is not measurable. 

Wishing and hoping prevention will save lives is not 

justification for removing fire crews that do save lives.

Roving can only work with an accurate crystal ball

Option 6 would see six additional 'roving' fire engines during the day, although details of how they will be used are sketchy. They talk about moving them to areas where, for example, "we typically have a number of accidents at particular times of the day on particular roads". They even admitted on Facebook that they don't have a crystal ball, but arrogantly claim, "robust analysis is the next best thing". It is not. No amount of analysis will tell them where and when the next emergency will be. It only tells them about incidents they have attended in the past. Fires and accidents can occur anywhere and at anytime, so there will be many more occasions when 'roving' fire engines are not nearby, than occasions when they will be.

The number of calls deception

The Chief Fire Officer claims that less calls justifies these cuts, but fails to mention that demand has never been used to determine the number of fire engines required. If fire service resources had been increased as calls increased then, even allowing for recent reductions, the service would have far more resources than it does now. 

Proper resource allocation is based on having a spread of resources to ensure a speedy and effective response to every emergency call, a speedy and effective response to assistance calls for larger incidents, and to ensure a high volume of calls in an area can be attended simultaneously. Severe weather events often result in numerous calls at the same time and climate change is increasing the scale and frequency of such events. 

Demand is only a factor in determining if a fire engine needs to be crewed by On Call Firefighters, for lower demand, or by Wholetime Firefighters for higher demand.

Every fire station is attending more emergency calls than when Chief Fire Officers, Councillors and the Home Office first approved the establishment of the current stations in 1948. Since then, despite emergency calls increasing significantly, before dropping back to levels well above those in 1948, the number of front-line fire engines in Devon & Somerset has never been increased. They have only ever been reduced.

There are around 3 fires in people's homes and over 50 other fires and emergencies every day in Devon and Somerset. There is no way of knowing where the next one will be, so resources must be maintained across the area.

Each 'X' on this map represents a fire engine permanently removed, or not available during the day, under option 5 of Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service's latest scheme.

It is also concerning that in the report, in interviews and on social media, unsubstantiated claims and statements are being made by Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service. Spin and speculation should have no place in an organisation that professes to be honest, open and accountable. 

Incredibly, when I pointed out that they were misusing the term 'risk', they admitted my definition was right. So why do they keep talking about 'low risk' when all they really mean is that an area or station has less incidents than other areas. The risk of anyone losing their life in a fire or crash, or losing their home or business, is the same wherever they are. 

What Devious & Secretive Fire & Rescue Service is really saying is, "if there are lots of emergencies in your area, then we will attend quickly, but if there are not, then we won't. To ensure we take longer to get to areas with less emergencies, we will remove your nearest fire station or fire engines from that station". 

About as responsible as a motorist saying, "I wear my seat belt on that road because there were ten serious crashes on it last year, but I don't wear it on this road because there were only two".   

This lengthy report is packed with statistics, some helpful some not, but it is missing crucial information.

The Fire Authority must not keep that information secret, it must be released before the consultation.