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>> NARRATER: This is Dorset Fire and Rescue Service, a well-managed, modern Service built on
strong traditions and core values. We’re here to attend emergencies but, wherever possible, we aim
to prevent these emergencies before they happen. Dorset Fire and Rescue Service covers the county
of Dorset, including Bournemouth and Poole, with 26 stations, more than 40 front line fire engines,
approximately 650 operational firefighters and over 100 support staff. But we don’t just work
alone. We work closely with key partners such as the police and ambulance and charities like The
Prince’s Trust and Streetwise. We have three key strategic aims:
The demands on the Service are varied and increasing. Many people do not even realise what
the Service is actually all about. We don’t just fight fires! Every year we attend more than 10,000
varied incidents. We focus on improving community safety by increasing public awareness of the ways
that risks can be reduced. From the youngest to the most elderly, we have plans to help. If you
are in the home, on the road, or in the country, there are hazards to be aware of. To help reduce
these, we are implementing a number of innovations along with our partners. By far the biggest cause
of serious injury from fire in the home occurs from accidents in the kitchen through unattended
cooking. We undertake home visits for the most at risk.
>> PHIL BURRIDGE: We carry out a safety check of the home to ensure that people are safe and we
educate them so that they can make an informed decision on being safe in their homes. We look at
dangers in the kitchen and the electrical systems within the home.
>> NARRATER: And now in many homes we fit free smoke alarms with 10-year batteries.
>> PHIL BURRIDGE: We have got several different types of smoke detectors. We have alarms that can
be used with a light switch. We have alarms for the deaf and the hard of hearing with a vibrator
alert for at night when they are in bed and flashing lights in their home. And for the elderly
and forgetful, we have heat detectors and optical detectors that will look for
flames in the home. >> NARRATER: Chip pan fire
demonstrations are held at community events to highlight how dangerous
chip pans can be if left unattended. >> PHIL BURRIDGE: We replace these free of charge,
because we see a lot of fires in the kitchen that are caused by the old type of chip pan. We will
replace them, free of charge, with a deep fat fryer that is thermostatically controlled.
>> NARRATER: We work with schools and young people to raise awareness of fire and other risks. We do
this in lots of ways - ranging from giving presentations, attending community events and
supporting the Streetwise interactive safety centre in Bournemouth.
>> ALISON CURTIS: Streetwise is a life sized village built inside a warehouse. It’s main
function is to help young children of primary school age learn how to spot dangers, prevent
accidents and how their own behaviour has consequences. What they do really makes a
difference and they have a choice, and whether the choice they make will have an impact on the people
around them and their own safety. Streetwise is well and truly in the heart of the local
community. So many children have been through our doors since we opened and so many people you meet
on the street, they say to us my child has been or my neighbour’s children have been or my cousins
have been, and isn’t it wonderful and they don’t stop talking about it. So the impact is really
huge but it is a long-term process, it is something which a child will learn today which may
never be used, but one day you can be sure that something will come out and it will make a big
difference. Dorset Fire and Rescue Service has been a partner from the very beginning with
Streetwise. That’s because their ethos is about saving lives, its about preventing fires and
putting fires out, but now there is a remit for accident prevention on the roads. So it is one of
those things which they feel really passionate about and that helping children from the earliest
age is going to sow the seeds of responsibility, which will help to make our community safer.
>> LINZI HOLT: Dorset Fire and Rescue Service see educating children and young people as an
investment for the future. By schools programmes and programmes that we run with the voluntary and
community centres we are educating children and young people to become fire safe and in that way
they can influence their families and their friends and the rest of the community.
>> NARRATER: For many years, we have worked with The Prince’s Trust and Firesetters to help young
people improve their prospects, and continue to act as a key delivery partner for this
important work. >> LINZI HOLT: Dorset Fire and Rescue Service has
been involved with the Prince’s Trust for over 10 years. We run a team programme which is a 12 week
personal and development programme for 16 to 25 year olds. These are young people from hard to
reach backgrounds. They may be long term unemployed, they may have basic skills in literacy
and numeracy or they may be young offenders. We put them through the programme and help them on to
positive outcomes so that they either go into jobs or onto training courses. Firesetters is an
intervention programme that the fire service run for children aged from five up to 18 to stop them
setting fires either in their homes or at schools or out in the local community. It is a programme
that allows them to make choices and to be more responsible as they grow older and to stop the
incidents of fire setting. >> NARRATER: It is now our responsibility to
enforce the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The Order places a duty on responsible
persons in all premises (with the exception of single private dwellings) to take reasonable steps
to reduce the risk from fire and make sure people can escape safely.
>> PAUL CHANDLER: The Fire Safety Order (or the Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order 2005) is a new
piece of legislation that replaced all previous fire safety legislation. It puts the
responsibility on people to make sure their premises are safe. It applies to all premises from
a pub to a factory. It even applies to common parts of blocks of flats. The only premises that
it does not apply to are private homes and individual flats in a large block. You must carry
out a fire risk assessment in the first instance. That is to identify any risk in your premises and
deal with it. If you cannot remove the risk, you must put measures in place to control that risk.
You should also consider any special needs for people that you employ or may visit so that you
can put precautions in place to assist them to leave the building in the event of an emergency.
The responsible person is the person who must undertake the fire risk assessment. That can be
anybody from an employer to an owner, or it can be the person who has part or some control of the
building, not necessarily the whole of the building but the part they actually work in.
Dorset Fire and Rescue Service enforce the Order and we will target our resources at premises that
present the most risk. We will still look into fire safety complaints and we will follow up fires
to see if any lessons can be learnt. >> NARRATER: Our role is also to help reduce road
traffic collisions. This includes warning about unsafe driving or general road safety. Of course,
when the worst happens, the public expects us to deliver. Our traditional firefighting
role is changing. >> SIMON ADAMSON: The Ambulance Service has asked
Dorset Fire and Rescue Service to provide a co-responder scheme in Lyme Regis. It is people
who can give a rapid response for emergencies with trained personnel and the right equipment that may
save a life before an ambulance can arrive. Most firefighters have training in general first aid,
in the use of oxygen and use of defibrillators. Those on the co-responder scheme get additional
training from the ambulance service plus specialised refresher training. We now anticipate
perhaps 250 callouts in the current year. It is an essential part of the infrastructure of West
Dorset now. It has saved lives, there’s no doubt about it, it has saved lives.
>> NARRATER: A wider range of chemicals means that we need to be prepared for a wider range of
hazards. Our equipment is right up to date and used by skilled crews. The traditional fire engine
carries much more than water and a hose. It is a high-tech rapid response vehicle, built to help us
work effectively in many emergency situations. To complement the fire engines we have specialist
support vehicles and even an innovative partnership arrangement with the police to provide
helicopter cover. Crews can be rapidly transferred to remote parts of the county to get to specialist
rescues in advance of the road vehicles. Response times meet or exceed our published targets but we
make sure it is the right response, the right equipment, personnel and support. We have 26 fire
stations crewed by a mix of firefighters both full and part time, or retained as they are known.
>> STUART TUCKER: Operationally, there is no difference between a wholetime firefighter and a
retained firefighter. A member of the public would receive exactly the same response depending on
what crew were to be attending. >> NARRATER: Firefighters working the retained
duty system usually live near to retained stations and when alerted by their pagers are able to
respond within five minutes. The retained firefighters receive payment according to the
amount of standby cover they provide and the number of incidents and community safety events
that they undertake. Of course, we need to ensure that regardless of the duty system our
firefighters are safe, and retained firefighters will attend their station once
a week to undertake their training. >> STUART TUCKER: The training that we receive is
ultimately the same. However, the retained training is spread across a period of two years
whereas a wholetime firefighter’s training is over a 14 week period. A retained firefighter’s
training is split down into a basic recruits course. They then go onto further development such
as breathing apparatus, first aid, driving courses and road traffic collision courses
over their probation period of two years. >> NARRATER: On arrival at an emergency, we carry
out a detailed risk assessment to ensure the safety of crew, the public and our partners. The
experience gained from previous incidents can be invaluable in helping us to prevent and respond to
future incidents. If the incident is a fire, for example, we will conduct a detailed survey to find
the cause and then raise local awareness to try to stop similar events happening again.
>> KEVIN BUTLER: We go back a couple of days after a fire with a quick strike pack for all those
people who live locally to the incident. This gives them information that there has been a fire
in the area and helps them to consider fire safety advice such as closing doors or fitting smoke
detectors. Fire never happens to anybody but it has happened to their local community. For me, the
most important part of the Service is the comradeship and also the diversity of the calls
we go to. Everything is different, there’s never two things the same.
>> NARRATER: The role of Dorset Fire and Rescue Service brings us into contact with many types of
incidents. Some very serious, others less so, but still important. We attend road traffic accidents,
water rescues and other situations where people or perhaps animals have become trapped. There is a
national co-ordinated response for major catastrophes such as the huge fire at Buncefield,
and we have implemented many lessons learnt from the terror attacks in New York, Madrid and London.
In recent years, we have introduced specialist units to deal with the potential need for mass
decontamination, and high volume pumps are now available to deal with the largest fires and
incidents of wide spread flooding. Whether we are preventing incidents or responding, our stated aim
is to be well managed and modern. Our people are the most important asset we have and we do our
best to ensure they are safe and provide all that they need to do the job. Across the county there
are a number of support networks to help our frontline response staff. These include workshop
staff, IT and community fire safety advisers. >> CAROL SWAN: We have a large workforce
comprising wholetime, retained, fire control, workshop and non-uniformed staff. So we have a
range of duty and shift systems available, including things like job share, part time working
and home working. Details of all those types of activities are available on request from the HR
department. For Dorset Fire and Rescue Service to maintain its highly skilled and well trained
workforce, we are constantly reviewing and updating our flexible working initiatives. We have
a career break scheme in place which is a new initiative. This enables employees to take unpaid
leave of absence from work to pursue perhaps a personal activity such as travel, looking after
family, or engage in further education or community or voluntary work. While doing so they
are safe in the knowledge that they can return to a career with Dorset Fire and Rescue Service at
the end of the break. We have a process in place for parents to apply for flexible working if they
have children under six or 18 if disabled. This process also applies to those with caring
responsibilities for adults. Staff can purchase child care vouchers through the scheme and benefit
from significant tax breaks. >> NARRATER: At West Moors, near Ferndown, we have
a very well equipped training facility - paramount to helping our firefighters practice techniques
and gain experience in using the latest equipment. One of our core values is that we promote equality
of opportunity in employment and progression within the Service. We work hard to achieve this,
and ensure that we undertake as much positive action as we can to ensure this happens. We’re
committed to being a family friendly employer. >> CAROL SWAN: Being a family friendly employer
will help us to retain and attract staff from a wider base which can only enhance the services
provided by Dorset Fire and Rescue Service. >> NARRATER: The overarching management of Dorset
Fire and Rescue Service is undertaken by Dorset Fire Authority, made up of a total of 15 elected
members of the constituent authorities of Dorset County Council, Bournemouth Borough Council and
the Borough of Poole. The Authority continues to develop procedures to satisfy itself that its
approach to corporate governance is effective and that resources are used economically and
efficiently. Further information about Dorset Fire and Rescue Service can be
obtained from our website.