Don't get me wrong... I wasn't complaining, I love the hot weather and would move to warmer climes at the drop of a hat. In terms of Firefighting, it may do us a favour.... along with increased Fire prevention the run of appalling summers has seen the Fire Service across the UK get a lot quieter in terms of call numbers which has played right into the modernisation/cuts agenda. My own Fire Service is on the verge of shutting 10 Stations and deleting 550 Ff posts... this summer is too late, but the increase in calls will buck the 'downward' trend of the graph.
Meanwhile, I'll continue to look at the model output discussions with increased joy and excitement.
Originally Posted by: Jive Buddy
I agree with your sentiments entirely and back you all the way! Our local station has one pump with a retained crew and was earmaked for closure a couple of years ago but locals successfully campaigned to keep it open. We're 20 minutes (on a good day with twos and blues) away from the next nearest station and are surrounded by Sherwood Forest, which has in some years kept Nottinghamshire crews busy all summer. The weather in recent summers hasn't produced conditions for large scale undergrowth fires, so the number of shouts has dropped and given reason for cuts, but that doesn't mean they're not going to happen again. A hot dry summer with no fire crews would put us all under threat, so I just hope this hot spell has come soon enough to make those in their ivory towers lick the egg of their faces!
Anyway in general, whatever the weather, there's always going to be some who don't like it. I'm loving it!
Originally Posted by: chuckfireswift
Are most of the call outs hot weather related? Just asking the question, surely cuts aren't made on the lack of hot weather?
Originally Posted by: Gooner
Not all calls overall. But historically the 'bread and butter' of the Fire Brigade is small outdoor and rubbish fires, a significant reduction in them is a significant reduction in calls. Of course there has been great progress in Home Fire Safety, Automatic Fire Alarm call reduction and also person shuts in lifts (a big problem in London with 5000+ taller buildings). So overall with several bad summer added ot this has shown around a one third reduction in calls.
But the hot weather is a multi-fold issue for fire services; most commonly, kids go out to play instead of being stuck indoors on their X box, they get bored, so they set things on fire... grass, rubbish and so on. Because it is dry it spreads and can become a larger fire requiring more than one fire engine. More kids see the Fire engines arrive, see that as a bit of adventure so off they go again and more kids light more fires. Fire crews get stretched, so attendance times are longer, fires develop more.
http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/14/200-people-evacuated-after-fire-in-bow-high-rise-flats-3882169/?ITO=news-sitemap . And for some indeterminable reason, we just seem to get busier overall.
So, if a small County Fire Brigade that may receive 100 calls per day sees a rise of 20-30 calls per day during summer months, A reduction of say 3000 calls on their 30,000 annual total is significant when it comes to their grant settlement. The same can be said for big Metropolitan Fire Brigades, but just increase the numbers fivefold.
Originally Posted by: Caz