On Friday evening we read in the
Telegraph and Argus that an elderly woman was rescued from a burning flat in “medium risk” Bingley. By Saturday, we had discovered quite how burnt she nearly was! It was actually reported on the WYFRS incident log an adult female was rescued by 105 ladder, the bit they missed out was by the time the first pump got there the elderly lady was hanging out of the window!
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| Courtesy of Telegraph and Argus |
Bingley was (obviously) the nearest station to the incident BUT they were off practising their water training so weren’t available. The nearest stations to Bingley are Shipley, Fairweather Green and Keighley.
Bingley could have got there in less than 2 minutes (as per RAC route finder) but as we have said, the pump wasn’t available.
The pumps deployed were from :
Bradford (7 miles away, 19 mins normal driving)
Keighley (3.8 miles away, 7 mins normal driving)
Leeds (a whopping 13.7 miles away and 33 minutes normal driving)
Shipley* (2.6 miles, 7 mins normal driving)
and
Idle* (2.7 miles and 7 minutes normal driving)
*Don’t forget Shipley and Idle are both to close under the IRMP approved in 2011and will merge and lose a pump.
Keighley has already lost a pump earlier this year. Fairweather Green is also to close.
Also remember if it is a “person reported” incident
it needs the attendance of a
minimum of THREE PUMPS!
BUT IT GETS WORSE………………. They needed an aerial ladder platform (ALP).
Under normal circumstances this would have been provided by Bradford BUT required the tactic known as “cross jumping” where a crew drive back to the station, hop off the “bog standard” pump and drive away again in the ALP (or in some cases CARP- combined aerial rescue pump) but Bradford did not have a qualified driver for the ALP, so had to call for assistance from Leeds over 13.7 miles away. We have quite a lot to say about ALP and CARPs but will save that for another day.
This incident brings together things
we have talked about in the past year at FCCL.
Reducing pump (and fire fighter) numbers is foolish as when the need arises there are insufficient pumps to attend an incident within a decent response time – the gold standard being 6 mins. Less pumps and crews will inevitably mean that fire fighters however professional will be tempted to take risks.
We assume the fire fighter who went up the ladder and rescued the elderly lady was physically fit and under 55 and operationally fit. With the proposed “reforms” that may soon not be the case. As well as insufficient engines you may end up with a rescue, such as was executed on Friday resulting in the ending of somebodies operational career. Injuries increase with age and as WYFRS hasn’t recruited for many years, fire fighters are getting older with no young blood coming through the ranks. The fire fighter going up that ladder is getter older............
And just a thought…………..
IF the old lady had jumped, broken her back and died she wouldn’t feature in the death column of the fire statistics. Only if you die IN A FIRE do you feature. Sad but True.
There is no mention on the incident logs of a working, disabled or not fitted smoke alarm. Bradford Areas strategic plan states it is to
"deliver a proactive fire prevention and protection programme. Stopping fires before they occur is our first priority. To date, our actions have delivered significant success and we want to build upon this. We believe our successful community safety strategy lies in the links we maintain with our partners and we plan to strengthen and increase these to deliver a professional and resilient emergency response service"
We here at FCCL aren't convinced this is so. Neither are we optimistic about their claims to provide
"effective and ethical governance and achieve value for money in managing resources".
Value for money, managing resources -
no mention of saving lives , just money !
We think WYFRS had a very miss on Friday ………………
