A report which could help shape the emergency response to national and international major incidents was launched in November. Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service’s report into the Buncefield Oil Depot fire - the largest fire in peacetime Europe - contains 30 recommendations, which will now be shared worldwide with emergency services and other agencies responsible for responding to major incidents.

Hertfordshire’s Chief Fire Officer, Roy Wilsher, launched the report today at the Fire Conference 2006 in Telford, where he gave a keynote speech and shared the stage with Fire Minister, Angela Smith. The massive explosion on December 11, 2005, in Hemel Hempstead, saw an unprecedented emergency response. Control rooms across the south east handled more than 220 emergency calls to the incident. In total, 786,000 litres of foam was used to extinguish the fire in 22 tanks.

“This report follows months of investigation, debriefs and interviews with those involved in the response to Buncefield,”said Chief Fire Officer Roy Wilsher. “There has obviously been a great deal of interest
in our response to the fire and the lessons we learned. This in-depth report examines the fire and rescue incident response step by step. We are very proud of our response to Buncefield but there are recommendations in the report which we have been looking at since the incident and which will now be shared with many organisations.” Some of the recommendations include:

• Establishing a national system to maintain an accurate record of all fire responders at the scene to enable a rapid head count if required.

• Giving early consideration to the type, quantity and duration of deployment of national resources.

• Introducing earpieces for radios to enable communication while wearing a helmet.

• Giving consideration to a national system of incident command support teams that could be deployed
during a catastrophic or protracted incident.

Facts

31 Fire and Rescue Services supported Hertfordshire
Four industry fire brigades supported Hertfordshire
15 High Volume Pumps used
Approximately 36 million litres of fuel saved
786,000 litres foam concentrate used (+100,000 litres returned)
53 million litres of “clean water” applied to fire
15 million litres of water recycled and reapplied to fire
10 million litres of water moved on site to protect the environment
38 km of hose used
Incident covered area approx 1.5 km by 1 km
51 buildings searched
1/2 mile radius evacuated (0.8km)
Window breakage at 2km with further minor damage as far away as 18.6 km
HFRS supplied 86% of the 642 fire appliances (over duration of incident) and over 90% of the total fire personnel.
66 special appliances deployed (over duration of incident)