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Tenbury Wells fire station is a solely "retained" station; which is crewed by firefighters who work on the "retained duty system." Retained firefighters are on-call as they carry a pager with them which will alert them to an emergency call. What is a Retained Firefighter? All firefighters whether retained or wholetime, carry out exactly the same duties and receive exactly the same training. The only difference is the "duty system" ie, the work pattern that they work. There are three duty systems that firefighters work in Hereford and Worcester, these being:
Retained Retained firefighters are members of the local community who are "on-call." They carry a pager with them during their hours of availability which will sound when required to attend an emergency call. Usually, retained firefighters will have other full-time employment, but are also fully trained firefighters available to attend emergencies as they occur.
Retained fire crews can be called upon to attend emergency calls at any time of the day or night on any day of the year. However, all retained firefighters have their own personal circumstances and commitments, therefore the fire and rescue service have six bands of cover (A-F) that a retained firefighter can opt to give which are shown below. In the event that a band does not exactly fit the cover being provided, "local agreements" can be made.
There are nineteen solely retained stations in Hereford and Worcester based in the smaller towns and villages that crew up to two fire appliances and some "special" appliances, for example the Water Carrier or Restricted Access Vehicles. However, all twenty-seven fire stations in Herefordshire and Worcestershire also have at least one retained crew. Day Crewing Day Crewing firefighters are split into 2 watches. they are based on station during the day, they then go home at night and respond from home when called in by pager in the same way as retained crews. All of the day crewed fire stations also have a retained crew based there that crew the second fire appliance and some "special" appliances, for example the Command Unit or Incident Support Unit.
There are three day crewed stations in Hereford and Worcester, these are Droitwich Spa, Evesham and Malvern. Wholetime Five stations in Hereford and Worcester are crewed 24 hours a day by Wholetime firefighters. These firefighters are split into 4 watches and work 48 hours per week on a shift system. Currently, the shift system is two 9 hour day shifts, two 15 hour night shifts, followed by four days off. All of the wholetime stations also have at least one retained fire crew based there that crew the second and/or third appliances and some "special" appliances, for example the Aerial Ladder Platform.
The five wholetime stations are Worcester, Kidderminster, Bromsgrove, Redditch and Hereford. |
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The
pagers that retained
firefighters carry are linked directly to the
fire service control room which is located in Worcester. This is where all 999 fire calls
for the county are answered. The
fire control operator who takes the call will mobilise the nearest fire
crew by activating their
pagers. On hearing their pagers, the retained firefighters will respond immediately
to their fire station and within 5 minutes of the call being received,
the fire crews are on the road and making their way to the
incident.