South Yorkshire Consulation ..................

Good Morning South Yorkshire 

Ok so its a bit early for humour! 

The Fire Brigades Union represents Fire Fighters all over the country, the Union like fire has no boundaries. So when we heard of our neighbours in South Yorkshire we did the ONLY   thing  possible and have offered to put our little blog at  our South Yorks comrades disposal. Because like us here at Fire Cuts Cost Lives the FBU believe a solid coalition of fire professionals and community are the  way to save the fire service from these irresponsible cuts in provision.

We hope the FCCL effect of gentle banter combined with solid facts will  ensure that the citizens of South Yorkshire have the full facts in regard to the current consultation at their disposal. And as the fire and rescue service learnt to their cost in West Yorkshire in 2012 social media can have a massive effect on how the process of public consultation works.

So over  the coming few weeks we hope the FCCL effect will rub off on to the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority and they will start to realise that the community do not back  the cuts in provision and response times that they propose.

Ask yourself a question  ,,,,to get the correct information about response times who would you trust to give an honest answer?

So 

lets start with the easy stuff,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, if you want to know more about how you can support you local firefighters get in touch with 

South Yorkshire Fire Brigades Union. 

Their  website is HERE  and their brigade organiser is Matt Winslow and  you can email him by clicking   HERE 

And if you wish to voice your opposition please use the link HERE to take you to the SYFRS website 

----Just CLICK HERE 

to take you directly to the consultation questions.

but REMEMBER ONE THING

It's YOUR LOCAL COUNCILLORS 

WHO WILL  MAKE THE DECISION TO CLOSE YOUR LOCAL STATIONS!!!!


TUESDAY at Doncaster Mansion House there will be  an opportunity to view the plans and have you say ---- details are available HERE  

On Ilkley Moor B'aht Fire Engine

We here at FCCL promote Fridays as Fireplan Fridays   

BUT 

We think WYFRS could  do with reviewing their plans 

after an incident on Friday  24th May 2013.  

At 07:56 a 999 call was received by WYFRS reporting an incident at St Pauls Grove in Ilkley  -  a nice leafy suburb - LS29 8JJ  and VERY LOW RISK. 

Now you would have thought with a fire station  not a quarter of a mile away the response time would have been been pretty damn good  BUT Ilkley is a retained fire station  ( a station where staff are on call, ie the station is not full time crewed)  So whatever the incident on Ikleys station ground an additional 5 minutes has to be added to allow the retained fire fighters to down tools and get to the station. As by the RAC route planner the station to St Pauls Grove would only take ONE MINUTE driving normally. Even so a five and a half minute response time would have been good for any incident (even if  you local station is just around the corner).

UNFORTUNATELY 

on Friday there was insufficient retained crew available to send  the engine from Ilkley.  

So WYFRS control mobilised OTLEY and RAWDON

OTLEY is a retained station and was nearest at 6 miles away 

(15 minute ordinary drive) 

Rawdon is full time crewed BUT is 8.5 miles away. 

(24 minutes ordinary drive)

Then things took a turn for the worse - the house fire became a "persons reported" incident  - which means that the number of pumps attending immediately goes to 

THREE. 

This means Silsden another retained station were  called out 

Silsden is a retained station and 7.5 miles away. 

(17 minute ordinary drive) 

By the time OTLEY turned the corner to St Pauls Grove 

13 MINUTES AFTER THE INITIAL CALL 

HAD BEEN MADE......

The neighbours had rescued the  "person reported" via a ladder to the first floor window.  

SO THIS LEADS US TO SEVERAL QUESTIONS 

1. Is it acceptable to have a response time of 13 minutes - even in a Very Low Risk Area 

2. Are WYFRS content with response times so dire that members of the public are forced to rescue other members of the public out of sheer  desperation! 

3. Will at some point somebody DIE because of these delays in response times.  

A neighbour, the home owner or  a fire fighter ? 

Yes we are aware that WYFRS are recruiting for retained fire fighters in Ilkley - BUT it can take up to 2 YEARS to train a  recruit to become a "competent fire fighter"  

Also  we would  like to point out that if Haworth had become involved in the incident, and as their parish council  wishes  becomes a "volunteer" fire service, they would NOT have been allowed to enter the building as volunteers are not allowed to use breathing apparatus.

We have said since we started this blog in  September 2012 that we genuinely believe that Fire Cuts Will Cost Lives -sadly we think this incident should be recorded as a  

VERY NEAR MISS 

(some would say a complete balls up!)

But this serious incident didn't even make it to the public incident log of the WYFRS website !  

What a good job some people believe in openness and transparency in the fire service.

Its FBU's to Us.

We have  said if we had even a small fire we would prefer 

And when it comes to telling the truth about response times and incidents  we prefer 

Which is why  we support the Fire Brigades Union in the sterling work they do in regard to the Anti Cuts Agenda all over  the country, even though we concentrate our efforts in the West Yorkshire Region.   

Remember,  the Chief Fire Officer Simon Pilling was proven by 

his own data we FOI'd  to have never attended an incident in 2011 /12! 

We wrote about  it way back in December 2012  here   

We cant help but wonder if any members of the FBU who are operational can say that  they never attended an incident in an entire year (whilst getting a tax free fancy car ! )

Occasionally  we have felt like packing in and giving up, but we haven't; opposing  cuts in provision is on occasions like being a goldfish that is repeatedly thrown into a tank of piranhas.   

And WHY ?

Simple - because the FBU is 

Choose Life - choose an experienced fire fighters word and their operational experience over a spreadsheet jockeys word EVERY TIME 

To contact the FBU - please see our page 

HERE 

These fires are messing our figures up

We at FCCL have known since starting this blog that 

West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue have always been 

economical with 

THE TRUTH  

And we at FCCL are also very fond of Friedrich Nietzsche. So the quote below covers how we feel when we hear of WYFRS yet again not giving the full story on their incident log, well actually not giving any story on their incident log........ so to quote Fred yet again 

" I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you"   

So tonight we are going to tell you of two fires in Keighley that NEVER MADE  the WYFRS incident log.  

But first we need to explain about Keighley .........

On December 21st 2012 the West Yorkshire Fire Authority made the decision to reduce Keighley Fire Station from two pumps to one. The consultation document issued by WYFRS in regard to response times said 

"The time it takes for a fire engine to get to a fire is an extremely important part of the overall ambition of “Making West Yorkshire Safer”, so it is vital that, with limited resources, fire engines are located in the best places where fires are most likely to occur."

Keighley is made up of three areas - 
Central -  Very High Risk 
East - High Risk 
West - Low Risk 

So many people, firefighters included were gobsmacked when Simon Pilling & Co announced that the second pump at Keighley was to be removed with much haste and no thought  at the end of February 2012.  

Since then we  have had several reports of WYFRS struggling to make pumps three when a house fire with persons reported is logged in the Keighley area. 

Lets take a look at  two  recent examples  

On Wednesday 20th March there was a house fire in Belgrave Road in Central Keighley, 
(a very high risk area). 

As we have explained before a house fire with persons reported requires the attendance of THREE pumps. Keighley duly turned out, followed by Silsden.  The third pump should have come from either Keighley or Silsden but both have had them removed by WYFRS. 

The third pump had to come all the way from Shipley  (which is also due to close soon!)  

Using the RAC routefinder  Shipley Fire Station   to Belgrave Road is 6.96 miles and takes 17 minutes, so even if you half it to  8.5 minutes for being able to put your foot down and blue light it all the way,  it is still  4.42 minutes over the current predicted response time for Keighley Central.


And not two days later the second fire with persons reported was in Branby Avenue (Keighley East - a high risk area)

Not just one person this time but an entire family who required oxygen therapy at the scene of the fire. This fire was attended by Keighley and BIngley.   It was more than good luck got the family out,,,,,, the dishwasher  ignited (we assume an electrical fault) and  caused the fuse box to trip the main switch. This set the burglar alarm off which woke the occupants of the house. As the kitchen door was shut the smoke alarm did not sound until the kitchen door was opened. This family have had a very lucky escape. 

And not a fire but a road traffic accident in Keighley on the 20th March  - sadly  two people died  and one was cut free by Keighley crews - no mention of this either on the incident log. 

So 

THREE INCIDENTS IN KEIGHLEY  - NOT ONE MENTION 


WHY ? 

well we have it on good authority senior staff at Keighley have said 

And there is only one response to that 

 We at FCCL think with a little help from our friends we will learn of more invisible incidents that never make the public logs. You would think that WYFRS would be proud to demonstrate what they do, instead of hiding brave men and womens deeds because it messes up their highly manipulated figures. 

Fire Brigades Union - Letter to Elected Members

Below is a copy of a recent letter from West Yorkshire Fire Brigades Union to local councillors and MPs. If you find the format difficult to read the text version is available HERE

Its About Time ..........

IT'S ABOUT TIME.....

Although we appreciate it is sometimes not appropriate to speed read documents or jump to hasty conclusions, sometimes it is necessary.
Below are a few cut and pastes from a document written by the Fire Brigades Union - called "Its About Time".   The full document is available Here - from the FBU reports pages  - we STRONGLY recommend you read the entire document. It's quite an eye opener.

In 2009, the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) published a report called Review of Fire and Rescue Service response times: Fire Research Series 1/2009.

The authors of the report used the Fire Service Emergency Cover toolkit (FSEC) to predict the effect of increased response times.

·        13 additional fatalities in dwelling and other building fires each year;

·        possibly 65 additional deaths in road traffic collisions (RTCs); and

·        an £85m increase in other buildings fire damage.

“Deaths offset”

The report expressed no remorse for 13 fire deaths caused by increased attendance times. It showed no suggestion of alarm that a deterioration of performance has left 13 people dead in 2006 (in England) who would not have died in 1996.

Instead, the report concluded that: “Annual dwelling fire fatalities fell by 142 between 1996 and 2006. This suggests that the impact of increased response times on dwelling fire deaths has been more than offset by other factors such as community fire safety, between 1996 and 2006.”

In other words, 13 people might have died in fires who might otherwise have been saved, but it’s as though it doesn’t matter because the primary focus of the fire service, community fire safety, saved 142 people. The net effect is that 129 fewer people die each year.

To the consternation of the FBU, the message sent out by this report is that there is no urgency attached to attending fires, even those where people need rescuing. As long as community fire safety is preventing fires from starting in 11 houses, so their “theory” goes, it doesn’t matter if someone dies when a fire starts in a twelfth house. Their death has been “offset”.

“80% already dead”

why it is now taking longer for fire services to respond to fires and other emergencies. On behalf of CLG, senior official Chris Wormald replied: “Around 80 per cent of fire deaths have already happened at the point at which the fire brigade is called. The actual effect of response times on the death rate is really comparatively small.”

 The postcode lottery

It is important to remember that the difference  between fire cover in cities and that in villages could be explained as the outcome of a reasonably practicable response to the overall risk in each location. However, a person living in a domestic dwelling in one part of the country has every right to expect their 999 call to be treated just as importantly as one from another person in similar accommodation elsewhere.

We could go on  - but it just goes to show we are right........ firecutscostlives.