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?"

More misleading and unsubstantiated statements from D&SF&RS

Some of you may have seen the recent BBC Spotlight item about Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service's plans to replace proper fire appliances (fire engines) with less effective vehicles. Now I understand the inclination of Councillors and others to accept what senior officers tell them, but you have to question the wisdom of doing so when they continue to make misleading and unsubstantiated statements.

Inept or intended to mislead?

In the interview, Area Manager Joe Hassell made the astonishing claim that a second appliance with a larger ladder would arrive "within ten minutes on nearly every occasion". Home Office figures show that the average response time for the FIRST appliance is over ten minutes at Primary Fires in Devon & Somerset, so claiming that the second will usually arrive within ten minutes is utter nonsense. Primary fires are classed as potentially more serious fires that harm people or cause damage to property. I don't know if his misleading claim was just inept, or if it was intended to mislead, but it is clearly inaccurate.

Even the, "within the minimum of 20 minutes" claim is dubious. Where is the evidence to support that? D&SF&RS have so far failed to provide any evidence. Does the claim relate to the actual day to day appliance availability, or to an idealised situation where every appliance is available? Increasingly, appliances crewed by On Call Firefighters are not available at all times. So, even if a second appliance is theoretically no more than 20 minutes away, in reality it may not be available and another one, from much further away, will have to be sent.

Longer response times

Fire Authority cuts, and the failure to ensure there are enough On Call Firefighters available, often results in significant gaps in the protection available for residents. An example, from earlier in the year, was a fire in a second floor flat in Ilfracombe, which needed four fire appliance crews and an aerial appliance to extinguish it. 

A few years ago there was an aerial appliance stationed at Ilfracombe and the fourth fire appliance would only have had to travel 6 miles from Woolacombe. In April this year, the fourth fire appliance had to travel nearly 20 miles from Lynton and the aerial appliance 55 miles from Exeter. 

Faster claim, where is the evidence?

The Area Manager claimed that areas with RIVs (Rapid Intervention Vehicles) will get a "much faster response time", yet no evidence has been provided to substantiate the claim. As these are not yet in service, this claim seems to be simply speculation. 

It was a claim that they made when they introduced Light Rescue Pumps, which were the first downgrade from proper fire appliances. Yet if you compare the average response time figures before the LRPs were introduced, with those since they went in to service, response times have actually increased. 

Anyone who has travelled on Devon lanes knows that it does not matter if you meet a car, van or lorry, you cannot pass. Someone has to reverse to a passing place, so the size of the fire appliance makes little difference.

The misleading 92% claim

The implication was that the RIV would only be missing 8% of the equipment on a proper fire appliance. Those who listened carefully will have realised that the comparison was not with a proper fire engine, but with the first downgraded D&SF&RS appliance, a Light Rescue Pump, which carries less water, less equipment and less crew than a proper fire engine. The RIVs will only carry half of some of the essentials on a full sized fire engine and will not have foam, a portable pump and, crucially, a proper rescue ladder. 

Are they running a supermarket or a life saving service?

This senior officer's response demonstrates D&SF&RS's fundamental failure to understand the basic function of the service. It is not a supermarket, where you look at percentages and remove from the shelves those items that are rarely sold. Like insurance, the fire service has to be prepared for every eventuality. Some equipment may not be used very often, but when it is needed it is needed quickly. Perhaps it is this failed thinking that is behind the introduction of the fire service equivalent of supermarket delivery vans in place of proper fire engines!

Sensible people don't cancel their insurance because they haven't claimed for a few years, but that is the shortsighted thinking behind these changes. 

Another shortsighted idea, because it means that when less frequent incidents occur in areas with RIVs, firefighters won't have the resources they need. Those less frequent incidents include those involving people trapped by fire, aircraft crashes, flammable liquid fires, hazardous materials, thatched roof and other larger fires. 

Depriving the first responding crew of essential equipment, and building in a delay for the arrival of that equipment, is not responsible planning. D&SF&RS has also ignored the fundamental reality that any fire crew can be sent anywhere, and can end up attending any type of incident, which makes a nonsense of the so called risk assessed locations.

Where are the risk assessments?

If they really have risk assessed the RIV locations, then why have they failed to provide them in response to a Freedom of Information request? There appears to be a very worrying absence of both operational and safety risk assessments. 

When asked how many properties, in areas due to receive RIVs, had upper floors that could not be reached by the short ladder on the RIVs, the answer was, "the numbers of properties asked for are unknown at present". As four locations had been confirmed, those risk assessments at least should have been complete. So, either the risk assessments were inadequate, or they have not been carried out.

They were also asked about the distance between hydrants, which is particularly important, as the RIVs carry less than half the water on proper fire engines. They said that for modern developments "no property should be more than 150 metres from a hydrant" (for older developments and in rural areas it could be much further). Incredibly, neither RIVs or Light Rescue Pumps carry enough hose to reach those properties furthest from a hydrant on modern developments.  

RIV = Really Ineffective Vehicle

Senior officers seem to be ignoring legitimate concerns and pressing ahead with 'Really Ineffective Vehicles, as some front line professionals are calling the RIVs. 

Those living or working in Devon and Somerset have good reason
to be concerned about these dangerous changes.