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This year’s US/UK Symposium turned out to excellent, with delegates hearing from Edwina Hart AM, the Minister for Social Justice and Regeneration of the Welsh Assembly, who stated that what matters most in all of this business is putting the community first. Add to that the overriding message of be prepared to think ‘Big’ and all the ingredients were ready to mix an interesting and challenging 12th symposium, reports Dennis Davis
OPENING THE SYMPOSIUM THE Minister caught the imagination of both UK and US attendees by announcing the novel concept that the Welsh Assembly preferred to listen to advice and leave solutions on matters like protecting those vulnerable from fire and reducing arson to their professional advisers. Using devolved legislative powers now available to the Assembly she indicated an enhanced policy to that recently announced in England regarding sprinklers. She said that sprinklers would be installed in all new schools without exception and funding would also be available to begin a programme of retrospective sprinkler fitting in those schools judged most at risk by the professionals.
This was refreshing news to all those who have trod the sprinkler initiative trail and the Welsh policy will no doubt become a quoted exemplar. Incidentally, the sprinkler initiative followed hard on the heels of the successful programme of installing hard-wired smoke detectors in all social housing. Our host, Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service, unstintingly supported by the fire authority, then made it clear that their focus was community partnership and, through a series of themes firstly about health and then in a maritime context, they illustrated to all that they were truly walking the talk. Presenters described the local coresponding emergency medical service, preparations for addressing the avian influenza pandemic, and, following descriptions of the UK and local maritime emergency response, rounded off with a practical demonstration involving the Maritime Coastguard Agency, Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Ministry of Defence, and the FRS Maritime Incident Response Group.
Mid & West Response
The EMS co responder scheme it emerged was celebrating 10 years of operation that now involved 14 local retained fire stations. The scheme received a ringing endorsement from the Regional Ambulance Officer who had evidence that lives were being saved having progressively reduced attendance times in rural areas so that 52 per cent of calls now had a medical intervention in eight minutes driving patient survival rates upwards. Given the sparsely populated nature of the FRS area and the scourge of heart attacks this alone is a significant achievement.
Likewise the discussion around avian flu confirmed that on both sides of the Atlantic this is seen as the number one threat to all humans. The scale of the threat is truly awesome and the informed opinion present expressed great concern at the inadequacy of current preparations. The conclusion was that the subject had not attracted the level of preplanning it deserved leaving many gaps in the preparations of both the FRS and wider public response with weaknesses in logistics, capabilities and public policy decisions. Looking at the available information the global estimates of death for those contracting the H5N1 virus are quiet chilling and for the survivors who are infected but do not die maintaining normality appears equally frightening. One throwaway comment on the practicality of culling large numbers of infected farmed birds in the US was the identification that smothering with firefighting foam had proved in practice to be a successful tactic.
Field Trip
The field visit to the Mumbles Coastguard Station added very rewarding substance to the symposium’s theme of partnership. The station is one of several Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres in the UK with a patch that would do justice to any emergency organisation extending well out into the western approaches.
At the station presentations afforded background on how the UK after a period of serious uncoordinated response to firefighting at sea had managed to pull the whole thing around using a network of consenting FRS and volunteer firefighers supported by the MCA. MIRG is a credit to all those involved and illustrated to all, especially those from the US, just what can be achieved in a few years through mutual cooperation; a total offshore firefighting capability for the whole UK coastline provided by less than 20 FRS. All this with little fuss, little money, and bags of enthusiasm and good industrial relations; a timely reminder that consultation and consensus remain as sound values in the modern FRS.
US attendees noted with interest the difference between the US Coastguard service, which is a part of the US Department of Defence, and the MCA, the latter a body with over 200 years of history originally focused on taxation or at least catching those seeking to avoid the fiscal backbone of all governments. MCA with partners like MoD and RNLI now provide a comprehensive safety service for those in peril on the sea and RNLI have recently added an extensive beach patrol system to meet growing leisure demands
Partner Agencies
The RNLI presentation added understanding to the meaning of the role of volunteers when to the surprise of many it was confirmed that the whole UK operation, an operation that rescues thousands every year, is almost entirely funded by voluntary public subscription. Not bad when you realise it costs over £2 million for each offshore boat and the funded posts of mechanic and coxson that goes alongside the remaining volunteer crew. The fact that firefighters, often retained firefighters, volunteer to be lifeboat crew, as did our presenter, made all those from the UK present feel justifiable proud of this quintessentially UK institution that has the highest of public service ideals.
And not content with talking about partnership, the partners of FRS, MCA, MoD and RNLI, then proceeded to show exactly how it is done with a training exercise that involved several Mid and West Wales FRS MIRG members transferring from a Royal Air Force sea king helicopter onto the moving deck of the RNLI Mumbles lifeboat under the watchful eye of the MCA on duty staff; in all quiet an afternoon of mutual emergency coordination in practice.
Emergency Management
With feet firmly back on terra firma day two of the symposium concentrated upon the key issue of emergency management faced by the FRS in both the US and UK. This extremely well researched and well received joint presentation on command synergies, global threats and practical response to water rescue and flooding included a sneak preview of an upcoming television documentary produced by the UK but filmed on location in the US. The threats reviewed were as might be expected extensive but terrorism was not the number one concern, rather avian flu reappeared almost to haunt attendees followed by the increasing realisation that tsunami, coastal flooding and wildfires occasioned by climate change, were far more threatening. The assessments of human misery, social destruction and economic losses arising from this largely manmade situation are daunting; far outweighing likely losses from continuing extremist led unrest. That said the Symposium acknowledged the serious threat of ‘lost’ nuclear weapons finding their way into the ‘wrong’ hands and being used on densely populated cities.
The societal impacts on communities, which include the FRS community, of these current threats raised extensive debate with an underlying message that the FRS is far from prepared for what is a predictable if uncertain future. This questions whether the FRS, and by implication governments, are simply not thinking wide enough or prepared enough for what are really big and worryingly events.
With this stark message ringing in attendees’ ears a review of command arrangements brought forward the interesting perspective that perhaps the US national incident management system has attributes of improvement for the UK emergency management approach. It was suggested that introducing genuine integration and interemergency service organisational understanding combined with clear doctrines, improved communications and comprehensive logistics management, as NIMS attempts to do, would aid the process. For example in the joint emergency control centre one mutually declared controller from the service most significantly deployed – rather than the singularly UK approach of automatic police primacy, leading multi tiered multi located commanders – was seen as having distinct advantage when confronting community emergencies like flooding that require a fully integrated response.
This thought provoking session was followed by an introductory insight into technology, both that to be used in the UK development of Regional Control Centres for the FRS and software for locating personnel and assets. The latter is now becoming available and offers the exciting possibility of accurately locating resources in a way that has previously eluded contemporary location identification using global positioning systems. Attendees quickly seized upon the contribution these options offer to improved FRS operations and more generally the wider contribution engineering and applied technology can make to achieve safer and more effective FRS operations.
Challenging Values
Finally the symposium turned its attention onto what might appear on paper to be a sad case of naval gazing; namely it questioned its own value to the wider community and the fast changing FRS scene. In the event this was extremely refreshing discussion that reviewed strengths and weaknesses. Widely accepted as providing a first class US UK network the symposium has over its 11- year life offered senior FRS leaders that rare opportunity of thinking time in a challenging yet safe environment. The Symposium benefits from hearing differing views and options that represent the diverse social and public contexts, including commercial realities, that exist. Discussions range over commercially sponsored research, this year being on clothing materials and command simulation, and frequently consider novel practices. Having such diverse and informed views, expressed with candour to avoid ambiguity, stimulates the search for better solutions.
By way of example of one solid outcome, the documented 2010 Vision statement has been used by many, not just attendees, to suggest the reorientation of FRS priorities and public fire policy. Some attendees who had experience of the process over many years stated that learning different views helped their own decision making and being free to speak openly clarified understanding. This in turn benefited policy and strategic thinking and added immense rigour to how they evolved community safety and protection.
The conclusion? The Symposium must continue with proactive explanation of the purpose, approach and tangible outcomes being made to the next generation of Anglo- American FRS leaders. So if you are in that group, interested in sharing your views, listening to other informed comment in an atmosphere of constructive debate and willing to travel under your own steam next Spring to the US East Coast, please get in touch – I will be happy to be interrogated. And remember – keep preparing and think ‘Big’!
About the Symposium:
Founded in 1996 by Dennis Davis and Bill Peterson and attended since by nearly 150 people including many fire and rescue service leaders. Meetings have been held in Orlando, Stratford on Avon, Plano, Chester, Chicago, Belfast, Washington DC, Plymouth, Cincinnati, London, Santa Rosa and Swansea. Dennis Davis is Chairman of the Federation of British Fire Organisations and an independent fire advisor. He is a former Chief Fire Officer in Cheshire, HM Chief Inspector for Scotland, President of CFOA and President of IFE. |
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