Plan to overhaul fire and rescue services

A RADICAL new plan could totally reshape fire and rescue services in the next few years, a fire fighters’ conference was told yesterday.

Firefighters are to become ‘ambassadors of safety’ and will be expected to advise people in the aftermath of a fire. A fire outbreak would be used as a reason to knock on doors and urge residents to check on smoke alarms, for instance.

A consultation process is underway to bring about a radical overhaul of the country’s fire service over the next two years. Minister of State for the Environment Batt O’Keeffe said there should be a significant improvement in firefighter safety and in responses to incidents.

The SIPTU full-time fire brigade conference, in Killarney, heard there were no fire cover standards and vast differences in work practice and in equipment in the country’s 220 fire stations at present.

One of the changes in the new plan, however, will be the introduction of the first ever risk profiles per fire station area.

Dublin fire brigade convenor Tony McDonnell said community awareness in fire prevention, health and safety for fighters, and fire cover standards would be part of the new service if a programme, announced by Environment Minister Dick Roche last February, was fully delivered.

“There are no fire cover standards at the moment, no template for fire chiefs, and response to incidents is on an ad hoc basis. Even equipment for stations is not based on population,’’ Mr McDonnell said.

Millions of euro needed to be invested in appliances to meet proper fire cover needs, he said.

Addressing 100 delegates, Mr O’Keeffe said the Farrell Grant Sparks Review of Fire Safety and Fire Services in Ireland had sparked much debate. Many authorities had been putting various recommendations into practice, but without the kind of consistency from authority to authority that was needed.

The future of the fire service in Ireland would depend on how change was embraced, he said.

Dublin Fire Brigade district officer John Sweetman said international fire services were being closely studied by the fire services change programme project team.

Sean Hogan, senior fire and emergency planning adviser to the Minister for Environment, said they should not underestimate the challenge in bringing about change and it would take a “hard slog’’ to achieve it.