Firefighters can’t use vital lifesaving equipment

Disturbing reports that inexperienced firefighters are being sent to emergencies without being trained to use vital lifesaving equipment.

Breathing apparatus available, but firefighters not trained to use it

Breathing apparatus is essential protection for firefighters and is critical if victims are going to be rescued from smoke filled buildings. Yet crews are reportedly now being sent to building fires with firefighters who are not trained to use breathing apparatus.

Lives and jobs on the line

Imagine your child is trapped in a fire and the relief you feel when a fire engine arrives. Then imagine your horror when you are told those firefighters can’t go inside, and you have to wait for others to arrive. With lowered response standards, you may already have waited over 16 minutes for the first crew to arrive, so you will have an agonising wait for the fully trained crew to arrive.

However, self-respecting firefighters will be unlikely to tell you that. Instead, they will either attempt a rescue without breathing apparatus, or by using it in an unsafe manner. 

Not only risking their lives but risking disciplinary action that could cost them their jobs.  

Unsafe Practice

Sending fire engines with crews that cannot utilise breathing apparatus has previously been deemed an unsafe practice by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE). Following deaths, they issued an improvement notice to a fire service in Scotland that had a number of remote fire stations not equipped with breathing apparatus. Most were then upgraded with breathing apparatus, whilst the few that were not upgraded were only used for fires in the open, or road traffic collisions. They were no longer sent to building fires, as it was unsafe.

Road Traffic Collisions

Specialist rescue equipment carried, but firefighters can’t use it

It is also reported that inexperienced firefighters, who are not trained to use vital lifesaving rescue equipment, are being sent to road traffic collisions where people are trapped. The extra time lost whilst waiting for a trained crew from further away may turn a serious injury collision into a fatal one.  

 So why is the County Council being so irresponsible?

After cutting a quarter of the County’s fire crews and failing to ensure the remaining fire engines are always crewed, response times are increasing. It appears that this irresponsible move, which puts firefighters and the public in extra danger, and runs the risk of prosecution by the HSE, is primarily intended to tick the box for meeting the response time target.

West Sussex County Council is required to provide an effective fire & rescue service. That should be the best equipment, with fully trained firefighters capable of using it, arriving quickly. The council, under Cabinet Member Duncan Crow’s direction, is failing to do that and is putting lives in danger.

Firefighters take enough risks for us

Adding unsafe practices is cowardly and unacceptable