Cambridgeshire fire fighters say reduction in crew size 'is putting lives at risk'

Firefighters will rally outside a meeting of the Cambridgeshire Fire Authority to protest a ‘dangerous’ reduction to fire crews.

Since January 1, Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service has cut the number of on-call firefighters attending incidents in Cambridgeshire to three per crew.

Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue say they strive to have at least four – and ideally five – crew members on a call – but by cutting that number to three, responses – especially to incidents in rural locations – can be quicker.

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has condemned these lower crewing levels, with 88% of members who are on call firefighters in the region signing a letter opposing the new practice.

Firefighters in Cambridgeshire will rally outside a meeting of the Cambridgeshire Fire Authority tomorrow (October 4).

A crew of three firefighters in a fire engine means there is one driver, one officer overseeing operations, and one crew member. The FBU said that firefighters are trained as crews of four or five.

Callum Hodgkin, FBU Cambridgeshire brigade organiser said: “Firefighters sign up to protect people’s homes and save lives, not to watch buildings burn.

“Fires can change quickly, so you never know what an incident is like until you arrive at the scene. With a crew of three, you aren’t equipped to safely tackle a serious incident like a house fire. You must wait for another crew to arrive.

“Firefighters in these crews face an impossible choice: wait outside a burning house or risk their jobs and lives by going in. We are proud to serve our communities and feel a moral duty to save lives. Sooner or later, this policy will end in tragedy. No firefighter should ever be put in this position.”

Chief Fire Officer Chris Strickland said: “We are not ‘cutting’ crew levels to three. We will always strive to have at least four and ideally five on a fire engine. However, we often have three firefighters available at on-call stations who can get to an incident in their local town or village quicker than the next nearest fire engine. In these situations, we are now allowing that fire engine to attend with a crew of three, backed up by the normal number of fire engines we would send to that incident.

“A crew of three on a fire engine is able to deal with many incidents quickly and safely, improving the service being provided to many rural areas.”

When the strategy was announced, Mr Strickland said: “We struggle to recruit on-call firefighters – for a whole host of reasons – and often our rurally based fire engines are deemed ‘unavailable for use’ as there are less than four firefighters available to crew them. We therefore often send the next fully crewed fire engine that is available but that can be several miles away, increasing the time it takes for us to arrive.

“By allowing a crew of three to respond to all incident types, we can get a fire engine to incidents much quicker and the crew can either deal with the incident safely, or get everything ready to start dealing with the incident as soon as more resources arrive to make it a safe operation.”