Emergency Preparedness and Resilience Fire Standard is published

The Fire Standards Board (FSB) has announced the launch of the eleventh professional Fire Standard: Emergency Preparedness and Resilience.

The Emergency Preparedness and Resilience Fire Standard focuses on ensuring fire and rescue service are prepared to respond to major incidents and large-scale emergencies or disruptive challenges (emergencies).

One of the desired outcomes of the Emergency Preparedness and Resilience Fire Standard is that services will contribute effectively to national resilience requirements and have suitable and sufficient access to resources and assets to support response to local, regional and national scale emergencies.

The development of this standard has been led by CFO Phil Garrigan of Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, who oversee National Resilience Capabilities on behalf of the Home Office, and National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) Lead for Local Resilience Forums, Stuart Errington. The development was also supported by Business Continuity and national and local resilience practitioners from across a wide range of services, and the Home Office and Cabinet Office.

One of the expected benefits of achieving the Emergency Preparedness and Resilience Fire Standard is that members of the public are reassured that their fire and rescue service is resilient, prepared and able to respond to emergencies while maintaining its critical functions during a disruptive event.

As with all Fire Standards, there’s a corresponding Fire Standards Implementation Tool, available on the Fire Standards Board website, to support services with the implementation. The tool was designed to support services in assessing how well they meet the standard; helping them to build an action plan to identify and address any gaps.

Chair of the Fire Standards Board, Suzanne McCarthy (pictured) said:

“The Board welcomes the launch of the new Emergency Preparedness and Resilience Fire Standard and recognises the contribution it will bring to fire and rescue services and the communities they serve.

“The standard builds on our increasing portfolio of professional Fire Standards.”

Fire Minister Lord Greenhalgh said:

“I’m delighted to see the launch of the Emergency Preparedness and Resilience Fire Standard which will support all fire and rescue services to follow a consistent and robust process when responding to major incidents and emergencies.

“This will play a vital role in helping to improve public safety, and reassuring the public that their local services are resilient and prepared to deliver a coordinated response”.