The common image of the Fire Service is naturally one of firefighters turning out in fire engines to fight fires. It is true of course, that some of the work involves attendance at fires, but the role of the Service is much wider and the emergency needs of the community much more varied.
The Service responds to emergency calls from the public for assistance, primarily to save life and prevent injury to individuals, but also to mitigate against damage to property. Many emergency calls however are not to fires, but to incidents where members of the public are trapped in machinery or vehicles following road traffic accidents, or trapped in other, perhaps less life threatening situations.
Other incidents may involve the Fire and Rescue Service being called to chemical spillage’s, explosions or toxic emissions. The Service is also required to deal with many other domestic situations, such as flooding, storm damage, people unable to gain access to premises, animals in distress etc. To deliver this quality of service to the public, the Service has to develop very comprehensive operational plans, such as the provision of adequate water supplies for firefighting; ensuring that effective arrangements exist to
receive emergency 999 calls and mobilise resources; implementing effective communication systems, enforcing, promoting and encouraging fire safety through programmes of inspection, community liaison and publicity; conducting effective training to develop the skills and abilities of personnel; and providing, maintaining and repairing premises, vehicles, plant and equipment.
The firefighter’s working life and training is geared to responding to emergency calls, regardless of weather conditions or the time of day or night. Every time firefighters are called to the scene of an emergency they must be prepared to deploy each and every skill in which they have been trained.
When they arrive at an incident as part of a team under the command of a Sub Officer or Leading Firefighter, firefighters may individually have to absorb a great deal of information rapidly and apply the skills they have learnt in conditions which will often be extremely dangerous and confusing.
Despite all the training given in preparation for such incidents, however, firefighters will from time to time be faced with new situations where they may individually be required to provide the answers using previous experiences as a guide.
A firefighter wearing breathing apparatus, feeling a way through a smoke filled building with toxic hazards, in order to effect a rescue, cannot ask for instructions.
In order to function effectively in emergencies every firefighter’s pre-eminent characteristics must be those of courage, physical strength, the capacity for rapid, intense and sustained effort, a disciplined response to emergency calls combined with the capacity to use individual initiative.
|
