The Institution of Fire Engineers' Mid Western Branch is holding a seminar on firefighter safety in high rise buildings on February 16th in Avonmouth.

Seminar organiser Adam Course told FIRE: "Firefighter fatalities are unfortunately an occurrence that is faced from time to time with near misses occurring much more often."

The first speaker is Group Manager Peter Boast who was group commander in charge of fire safety at the time of the Harrow Court fire. Peter was also a long standing member of Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service's fire investigation team and was part of the four person fire investigation team that was set up to investigate the tragedy. As part of this work Peter worked closely with the accident investigation team, the police, the Forensic Science Service and the Building Research Establishment. Peter has also been involved with Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service's BA training and incident command training following the HSE improvement notice. Other involvement includes work on the Harrow Court case study presentation.

The second speaker is Dave Sibert from the FBU. David joined Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service in 1982 where he worked for 22 years. Initially he worked as an operational firefighter, before being promoted into the fire safety department where he worked as a general inspecting officer, and held specialist posts inspecting licensed premises and hospitals and working in the fire safety technical support office. Dave also spent over a year developing and coordinating the brigade-wide risk management project which considered the implications for brigades of the 'millennium rollover'.

After graduating from South Bank University with a BEng Honours degree in fire engineering, David also worked as an associate fire engineer with a fire safety consultancy in Nottingham.

In April 2004, David joined the Fire Protection Association (FPA) as a trainer and technical consultant responsible for the development and delivery of training courses. In 2005, David was appointed Senior Fire Engineer within the FPA, assessing the suitability of fire engineered proposals on behalf of building control bodies and insurers. David undertook risk assessments of fire engineered and complex buildings and audited fire safety management systems for of the FPA's Fire Advisory Services.

In April 2008, David took up his current post as Fire Safety and Integrated Risk Management Planning Advisor for the Fire Brigades Union.

David's current role is wide ranging, but at its core it is primarily focussed on the maintenance of firefighter and public safety through the delivery of fire safety in the built environment and through good fire and rescue service planning.

Subject areas for the day include fire investigation, forensic science, fire service ops, incident command and control, Fire Service equipment, fire safety regulations and smoke control. Adam Course said: "This series of presentations will also prove to be particularly interesting to people who work outside the Fire and Rescue Service who deal with fire related issues, for example local authority planners and enforcement officers, private fire risk assessors, design engineers and other emergency service workers."

 

Programme: Fire-fighter Safety in Buildings Part 2 − High Rise Fires 

1000:  GM Peter Boast - Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue

'Case study: Harrow Court, Stevenage, 2005' and 'Lesson learnt: operational and technical fire safety'

1315:  Dave Sibert, FBU Fire Safety and IRMP Advisor

'High Rise Fires and the FBU Fire-fighter fatalities campaign'

The seminar will take place at Severn Park Training Centre, Avonmouth, BS11 0YA on Thursday 16th February.

For more information contact: adam.course@avonfire.gov.uk 

 

Posted January 16th, 2012 at 1020 by Andrew. Comment by emailing: andrew.lynch@pavpub.com