Concerns raised over reduced fire crews in Staffordshire

A recent report to the Police, Fire and Crime Panel meeting revealed on average a three-person crew arriving first at a scene was almost 10 minutes quicker than the next fully-crewed appliance and that availability of on-call appliances had increased by 11% during the pilot.

Earlier this month the results of the public consultation into the three rider trial were announced with 80 per cent showing support for the scheme. However questions have been asked how representative the results are considering only 1,374 completed the survey.

During a presentation at Staffordshire Moorlands District Council’s Community Overview and Scrutiny Panel Councillor Chris Wood, a retired firefighter questioned the commissioner on the lack of consultation responses considering the population of Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire is over one million people and asked what policies were being put in place to prevent three firefighters from attending a house fire.

Three-firefighter crews would not normally be sent to tackle a house fire and are typically sent to smaller incidents or if they arrived and were the first appliance on site could set up equipment while waiting for another crew.

Commissioner, Ben Adams, said: “The consultation with the public was positive around a general way forward about maximising the opportunity for people to respond to fires and to be more effective in doing so, which this trial over 15 months really demonstrated it did. Hundreds of incidents attended that would not otherwise have been and those much quicker; several minutes quicker than they would otherwise have been.”

A recent incident in Lichfield raised concerns after a crew of three entered a property fire. A full report on the incident is set to be presented at a future police and crime panel in the next month in an attempt to reassure both the public and councillors.

The commissioner continued: “There was an incident in Lichfield where the crew and the station or the manager decided they would intervene even though they were the first appliance on the site and they’d only got three. There was an oven fire, a hob fire as it turned out which was managed very easily.”

“More importantly as a result of that and the concern of firefighters we are implementing riding in threes for on-call firefighters. They will generally be the second or third appliance at an incident and they will not be required or even given the information about house fires which might lead them to being first on scene and feeling compelled to act.

“So essentially we have tried to tackle head on the concern of moral hazard that some of you former colleagues have raised.”