Nathan Travis, NFCC lead for Environment and Sustainability and Chief Fire Officer of Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service, looks back over the last decade as to how Climate Change has shaped the UK Fire and Rescue Service – and signposts what the future might hold.

After the (2007) Flood…

When I took up the role of the first CFOA/NFCC lead for environment and sustainability over ten years ago, it was on the back of helping to organise and present at the 2009 CFOA Autumn Conference devoted entirely to the subject of Climate Change, dramatically titled ‘50 Days to Save the World’ (taken from a quote by the then-Prime Minister, Gordon Brown).

However, as an Area Manager, at the time, I had personally experienced the devastation to local communities of the wide-area flooding across Gloucestershire two years previously and I felt very strongly that the Service had a significant role to play in supporting and protecting people from the future impacts of such extreme weather events.