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2011 / 12 Integrated Risk Management Plan HAVE YOUR SAY 150710

HEREFORD AND WORCESTER Fire and Rescue Service have released their 2011 / 12 IRMP for public consultation, setting out the services priorities for the future.

The consultation document available on HWFRS's website sets out 7 recommendations for 11/12, which are listed below.  To read more details and to have your say please visit the official site.

• RECOMMENDATION 1 - TECHNICAL FIRE SAFETY REVIEW

During 2011/12 we will conduct a review of the impact of the recent changes in Technical Fire Safety arrangements to ensure that the anticipated benefits are being fully realised.

• RECOMMENDATION 2 - COMMUNITY SAFETY

We will review the allocation of our community safety resources to ensure the best fit of activities to risk. This will maximise our ability to reduce risk in our communities

• RECOMMENDATION 3 - AUTOMATIC FIRE ALARM STRATEGY

We will reduce our attendance at AFAs through a review of our policies and procedures and the implementation of our findings.

• RECOMMENDATION 4 - REVIEW OF FIRE COVER AND RESPONSE ARRANGEMENTS

We will review our fire cover and response arrangements with a focus on:

• The requirement for a third appliance at Hereford, Worcester and Redditch.

• The current crewing arrangements at Bromsgrove.

• The appropriate number of personnel on each watch at wholetime and day crewed stations.

• RECOMMENDATION 5 - PROPERTY

We will ensure our Property Strategy is fully aligned to our IRMP proposals including Recommendation No. 4 and other aspects of Service Delivery, such as the provision of effective operational training.

• RECOMMENDATION 6 - PROVISION OF OPERATIONAL TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

We will consider our current operational training strategy and provision to identify any potential for improvement in both effectiveness and efficiency, and implement any appropriate changes

• RECOMMENDATION 7 - ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY

We will review our approach to environmental issues to ensure that we are maximising the potential partnership working in this area, reducing our energy usage and identifying further opportunities for cost efficiency.

RETAINED Firefighters in Herefordshire and Worcestershire are to adopt an electronic availability system to monitor crew availability.

The software, created by Gartan Technologies Ltd is to be piloted over a one month period during July at three stations across the two counties (Malvern, Stourport and Ledbury) to ensure the software is ready for rollout.  Once the pilot is complete, training of staff on stations will commence prior to it's introduction.

Crews currently use a paper based system to monitor crew availability, which requires firefighters to physically visit the fire station every time they leave their station area in order to fill in the availability sheet as either "not available" or "delayed."  If crewing levels are low, they then have to telephone the officer in charge, who will in turn check availability and contact fire control.

The new system allows firefighters to use a mobile phone text message, online website or telephone to book unavailable on the system.  If crewing levels are low, the system automatically notifies officers by text message (depending on user preferences) of any crew deficiencies and automatically updates crew availability in fire control.

Hereford and Worcester are the 17th fire and rescue service in the UK to adopt the Gartan system.

FIREFIGHTERS from Tenbury Wells had to call in a specialist fire appliance with a new Compressed Air Foam System (CAFS) to deal with a blaze involving a large skip in a layby on the A49.

The skip, containing a large quantity of oil-soaked rags, was well alight on arrival of Tenbury crews, who made an initial attack with traditional "ARFFFP" foam.  An appliance from Redditch with a new state-of-the-art foam system - CAFS was sent to the scene to help deal with the deep seated fire.  The system injects compresssed air into the foam, making it much more effective and efficient in knocking down the fire.

TENBURY FIREFIGHTERS will be sporting a new uniform within weeks it has been announced. 

All Herefordshire and Worcestershire firefighters will be taking delivery of the new Titanium grey and red uniform within the next six to eight weeks.  The uniform is being supplied under the national Firebuy arrangement.

The uniform consists of a red t-shirt, titanium grey shirt, dark grey trousers, black shoes and socks.  The uniform will include collar rank markings, and two coats.

Replacement fire engine for Tenbury crews 090210

CREWS at Tenbury Wells fire station have now taken delivery of a replacement fire engine, to replace the ageing Dennis Rapier, that has served at Tenbury since 2007.

The replacement appliance is a Dennis Sabre on an X- plate (pictured below-left), that has previously served at Bromsgrove fire station.  The station can now deploy two Dennis Sabre appliances.

The previous Dennis Rapier is photographed below parked up at an incident.

The L registration Rapier is at the end of it's operational lifespan, and has now been taken out of service.

To see the appliances page, click here >>>

Station to get replacement fire engine 050210

FIREFIGHTERS at Tenbury Wells Fire Station are due to receive their replacement fire engine on Tuesday (9th Feb 2010).  The X-registration Dennis Sabre will replace the L-registration Dennis Rapier that has served at Tenbury since January 2007 but is now at the end of its operational life.

The new appliance previously served at Bromsgrove Fire Station as the retained pump, and is itself being replaced by a new vehicle, which is a CARP (Combined Aerial Rescue Pump.)

TENBURY Firefighters have completed the first module of training for the new breathing apparatus sets to be rolled out during April.

Module 1 was completed last Monday and involved set description and general checks.

Crews also familiarised themselves with the Bodyguard unit.  

Modules 2 and 3 were completed on Sunday 7th Feb, in the form of a whole day training session.  Modules 2 and 3 covered entry control procedures, emergency air supplies and operation of the BA set.

Training is still ongoing with modules 4 and 5 still to complete, and should be complete in time for the go live date of April 14th.  We are also hoping to use the new sets at an off station training exercise in Burford.

Previous news item regarding new BA sets >>>

TENBURY fire station is recruiting for firefighters again, after some recent success with the last recruitment session.

Tenbury station now has one new firefighter on the run, and one more attending training centre shortly, however, we still need more personnel, so are holding another recruitment session.  

Details can be found on the recruitment page in the operations section of this site.

OUR website first went live in 2001 and started out as a very simple framed site, with a red and white colour scheme.  While sorting through some old files, we came across some screenshots of the website since then, which we thought we would add to the site to share with our visitors. 

The original URL of the site was "http://website.lineone.net/~tenbury-fire-station", and could also be accessed at "takeoff.to/tenbury".

We then moved onto a new internet service provider, with a much better free URL - www.tenburyfire.f9.co.uk, until we purchased our first domain name, which is still in use today - www.tenburyfire.co.uk.

In the early years of the site (pre-broadband), we had to take into account dial-up internet speeds of around 28k - pictures had to be small and used sparingly!  The first two screenshots we have are taken on 17th April 2003, a couple of years after first going live.  The site had an aqua and white colour scheme, again with a framed layout.  The second screenshot is the homepage of the community fire safety section.  At the time, we had had 2062 visitors.

Below is the next version of the site - 2004.  It was created due to a change in standard screen resolution.  The old site no longer fitted on most computer screens, so we had to design something that would fit on both the old and the new screens.  At this point we moved away from a framed site, and changed the colour scheme to red and yellow. (You may also notice the upgrade to Windows XP, although still on dial-up.)  This was taken in October 2004, with a new URL registered - www.treble9.com.

Below we have the 2005 version of the site.  Back to a red colour scheme, and a frame based site.  Screenshot taken in April 2005.

Below - broadband has arrived! This is the 2006 version of the site - some new software meant we could use our own animations on the site for the first time.  Here you can see we had just taken delivery of a new Dennis Sabre, and were still waiting for the Rapier.

The 2007 version is missing from these images, however, it was a maroon and cream colour scheme.  The pages were almost identical in content to the current site, as the content was simply transferred onto the 2008 site when it was created.

Below, and we are now up to the present day.  Notice the arrival of widescreen.  The current site (2008) went live on 1st January 2008, but has seen a few aesthetic changes over the last two years.  The page banners have changed, a battenburg pattern has been added and the navigation menus have been updated. Other than that the layout and colours are the same as when it was launched.  In December 2009, the fire safety section was re-written to echo national guidance.  The current version of the site was designed to link in with the new national uniform colours that are due to arrive soon.

The page shown below is sporting a fire safety banner, advertising the national fire safety campaign currently being run by government.  Once the campaign is over ,we will revert back to the "normal" greyscale banner.