Small fires units will make an impact!
Having dedicated or specialist units to deal with small fires will free up major fire appliances to be deployed to where they are needed the most!
The units, which have been proposed as part of Warwickshire County Council’s Fire and Rescue Services Improvement Plan, will ensure there are specialist vehicles available to respond to small fires and anti-social fire related incidents.
This means that where appropriate, fire engines will no longer need to attend small fires, freeing them up to attend the life risk incidents such as house or property fires.
Trials in Nuneaton have already shown that these smaller units can be used to combat the anti-social behaviour responsible for many small fires, and it is hoped that if Implemented the new units will be as successful.
Chief Fire Officer, Graeme Smith said: “The main benefits of having dedicated units, is that we are able to provide a response which is scalable to the size of the incident. This then frees up the time of fire engines to attend life risk incidents, when residents need us the most.
“Last year we attended 1,535 small fires. A number of these were very small arson related incidents such as bin and grass fires and each time we deployed a fire engine.
"Unfortunately by sending a major appliance to these types of incidents, they do increase, because the arsonist is getting the excitement of a fire engine attending.
"The ASFIT scheme we piloted in Nuneaton proved that sending a dedicated unit to these types of incidents is more effective and did reduce small fires by 82% in the Camp Hill area.”
Portfolio Holder for Community Protection, Richard Hobbs said: “The introduction of the dedicated units would make a real difference to the way in which we deploy our resources.
"By freeing up the time of major appliances and the crews manning them, we can ensure that we spend more of our time on preventative work carrying out home fire safety checks and working with communities to make them safer.”
The consultation ends on the 8 December 2009. Residents can still log onto http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/fireandrescue to have their say. Alternatively you can e-mail fireandrescue@warwickshire.gov.uk with any questions you may have.