Caution urged after record year for wildfires
“The fire service attended hundreds of separate forest, bog and gorse fires during 2010,” Clare’s chief fire officer Adrian Kelly noted yesterday.
He urged the public, in particularly landowners, to familiarise themselves with the latest Department of Agriculture advice on fires in forests and scrub land.
“All legal burning should be carried out in a controlled manner as it is vital we don’t have a repeat of the record numbers of fires last year,” he said. “We would advise members of the public to check detailed information regarding the controlled burning of lands on the website, www.agriculture.gov.ie.”
He was commenting at the opening, by Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan, of County Fire and Rescue Service’s new training centre in Ennis.
The €470,000 facility is funded by the department and will be used for the provision of training, both for the emergency services and local authority personnel.
During this year, the local fire service will provide over 40 training courses with an estimated 400 places available to fire service personnel.
The courses will include wild land firefighting, road traffic accident techniques, AED/CFR and emergency first responder (medical).
Mayor of Clare Cllr Christy Curtin said the completion of the new training centre was a very positive development for the fire and rescue service, as well as for the people of Clare.
According to Mayor of Ennis Cllr Tommy Brennan: “In spite of the current economic climate, it is pleasing to see that investment in our emergency services is continuing.”
Fire chief Mr Kelly said: “Our fire and rescue staff are among the most highly trained in the country and this stand-alone training facility will raise staff training levels even further.
“The new facility complements existing training facilities at Ennis Fire Station and enables us to run national training courses, as well as courses for external bodies and local authorities”.
Ennis Fire Station is currently made up of nine senior fire officers, one whole-time station officer, fifteen retained firefighters, three administration staff and two fitter mechanics.
