Firefighting UK Style - Email Conversations Between Peter Szerlag and Assistant Divisional Officer Gary Pearson
Questions by Peter Szerlag - Answers by Gary Pearson
Question - Could you tell me how the various Fire Brigades in the UK are funded? Is it primarily from county level taxes (if there is any such thing)?
Answer - It is a little complicated, but basically Central Government (for us, the Home Office) get given an amount of money from the Treasury for the whole of the UK. This is normally last year's money plus x% (5% this year). This amount is then divided amongst all the Brigades according to a formula known as the Standard Spending Assessment (SSA). The SSA takes into account the population covered by the Brigade, number of calls, etc. So an individual Brigade may get a bit more or less than the headline 5% figure. The SSA is a nominal estimate of how much it would cost to provide a standard level of service for each brigade, given the wide variance between population size, density, nature of risk etc.
The Fire Authority is the [county level] political body (councillors) who have a legal duty to provide a fire brigade. They may choose to spend more than the SSA, but have to raise the extra from local taxation. Local accountability - if they spend too much / not enough, they don't get re-elected - that certainly focusses their minds!
Question - Do all firefighters in the UK earn the same pay? Or does it vary from FD to FD?
Answer - Yes (except London firefighters who get a London Allowance due to the supposed greater cost of living in London - very common for a wide variety of workers). We used to have to haggle / negotiate annually for our pay award. In 1997, there was the first & only national fire service strike....6 weeks of purgatory. End result - each year we get an automatic pay rise sufficient to take us into the 3rd quartile of average skilled male manual workers pay. In other words, if the average skilled worker pay rise for the past year was 3%, that's what we get. Seems to suit everyone - no industrial unrest. Just to emphasise, I am employed by my East Sussex Fire Brigade. I can choose to apply to, say, London Fire Brigade, but I cannot be transferred there against my will. My Brigade, like all Brigades, agrees to be bound my the Natioanl Joint Council decisions on conditions of service, pay, rank structures etc, so wherever I go, the basics are all the same.
Question - Lastly - can you tell me a little about your radio system? Does every on-duty firefighter have a portable radio, or is it usually one portable radio per appliance [fire vehicle]?
Answer - The Home Office recommendation is at least 2 per appliance. Most Brigades supply more than this. We supply 3 per appliance, 1 of which is fitted as comms to a BA set.
You also need to understand that our BA procedures are far more structured than yours. We *never* enter a structure in BA on our own. We never wear BA without a person acting as a dedicated accountability officer. This officer (BA Entry Control Officer - BAECO) has an accountability board, onto which he places each wearer's tally. The time of entry is recorded, with the name and entry pressure. A calculation is made from a look-up table of the expected duration of air, and the 'time due out' is recorded. If the wearer has not exited and collected his/her tally by the due time, emergency procedures are automatically instigated. Every BA set also has a PASS device, the key to which is attached to the tally mounted on the board outside the structure.
Sorry about the long explanation, but our system is very different to the ones I saw in operation in the US, where each wearer seemed to take pride in stretching the duration of their cylinder by turning it on and off as they saw fit. Back to radios - standard attendance to a structure fire is 2 appliances, typically 9-10 personnel total. 1 radio for IC, 1 for each BA crew (2 teams of 2), 1 for BAECO, 1 for 2nd officer, 1 for pump operator = 6. Works for us.
Anything else you want, please feel free. I am certainly not saying we do anything better than you - just slightly different. I saw many excellent things in Seattle, Dallas, Phoenix & Chicago that I was glad to be able to bring back with me.
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Question - How do units identify themselves on the radio?
Answer - We use name & rank as portable radio ID, because at a large incident the radios can and will be redistributed from their original allocation, according to need. Note that we do not talk through from our portable radios to our Control (Despatch?) Room. All messages are sent to Control from the IC (or by his radio operator, usually the driver at a smaller incident).
As for appliance call signs - we have two primary types of pumping appliances (pumpers). They are both functionally the same, except one is an Extended Rescue Pump (callsign Echo) the other is a Water Tender Ladder (Whiskey). So station 24's appliances have the callsigns Echo-2-4 and Whiskey-2-4.
'Specials', i.e. non-pumping appliances like aerials, heavy rescue etc, get their callsigns in a similar way, so Romeo-0-1 is the heavy Rescue unit at Stn 1.
Officers get a prefix according to where they are based, and their position in the pecking order. All officers at HQ are Victors (Chief = V-0-1, Deputy = V-0-2 etc, then the functional divisions kick in, so all officers at HQ working in the Technical Division get call signs from V-1-1 to V-1-9, those in Training get V-2-1 to V-2-9). Officers working for Operations Command get Alphas (e.g. Alpha-2-3). Fire Safety Officers get Bravos (Bravo-3-2). Seems complicated, but it accurately reflects our internal divisions / sectors / stations, and makes a lot of sense when you know that Alpha-2-3 is an Ops Command officer working in Sector 2, and is the third-ranking officer in that Sector. When they get on a portable radio at an incident, they revert to call-signs like Station Officer Kavanagh.
29 October 2000
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Question - Your portable radios are on the 452Mhz band - correct? And the appliance radios are on the 80Mhz band - correct? Are there any relays fitted on any of the appliances to allow the signal from the 452Mhz portable radio to be relayed to the controller via the 80Mhz radio? And when you said that the IC maintains contact with the Control Room, do they have to walk to a appliance and use the 80Mhz radio in the appliance? Or is there 1 channel on the 452Mhz band that allows the IC to contact the Control Room?
Answer - I don't know the exact frequencies that we use. I do know that they were allocated by the Home Office many moons ago, and they are about to be taken away from us (far too reliable, therefore commercially valuable). Nationally, we are being kicked off of our current bands by 2004. Various options are being discussed - no firm solutions yet. The future options deserve a whole email to themselves, if you are interested....let me know.
We do not have any portable radios that talk directly to Control (Despatch). The IC uses his portable to talk to the unit set up as Command, where his messages are relayed via the mainscheme radio by a Ff. At larger incidents, this is a dedicated Incident Command Unit, at smaller incidents the IC designates a pumping appliance.
Question - Are all of your hydrants below ground? Perhaps one or two 25mm threaded outlets covered by a metal plate on the sidewalk?
Answer - All hydrants should comply with the British Standard, which only talks about below-ground outlets.
Question - Do your chief officers have drivers? I know that you do not have battalion chiefs like we do here in the USA. But do the upper level Chief Officers have drivers?
Answer - No, we do not have drivers. I am a similar rank to your Battalion Commander (Assistant Divisional Officer). I drive myself to calls. I should find a person nominated as Command Support by the IC when I arrive. I will use them, and supplement them as necessary, from existing resources, or additional resources if I call for them.
I actually like the Battalion Commander concept, but it is seen as too expensive an option for most UK brigades (although some of them have experimented with similar concepts). All officers from Station Commander rank upwards are on a scheme called the 'flexible duty system', which basically means that you work a combination of day-shifts, 24 hr duties and rota days. During the day you do your 'office work', and respond to calls as required. In the evening, you are on call from home. This goes right the way up to Chief Fire Officer rank. You would need to have a very understanding partner to be able to have your driver with you when you were at home but on call!
Hope this is of some help. Look forward to hearing from you again, Gary Pearson
02 November 2000
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From Gary P - Before I forget, you asked about radio frequencies. As I said before, these frequencies are allocated and managed by the Home Office, to ensure cross-border compatibility, no interference etc. Our mainscheme radio (mobiles to Control) works at about the 70 MHz range, AM. The portable radios work at about 451-457 MHz (FM). If you want to know more about the future options being discussed, go to the Home Office website (www.homeoffice.gov.uk). Follow the links to fire service and communications. There is also a new UK Manual on Firemanship about Communications...see http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/fepd/pubs.htm.
Question - What terminology is used on the radio to identify the IC and other radio users? Would the IC be "Farm Road IC" and the radio relay person be "Farm Road Command"? [I am making things too complicated here. As you will see, the radio IDs are very simple. The setup is very similar to the longtime procedure used by the New York City FD. In NYC, the battalion chief's aide would sit in the BC car and monitor the fireground radio traffic (on 153.83) using a portable radio. When required, the BC's aide would talk to the Borough dispatcher via the mobile radio in the BC car.
Answer - Yes, it is pretty standard. If I am the IC, I communicate to the Control Unit using "ADO Pearson to C01 (or the call-sign of whatever appliance I have allocated as Control Point). They would use "C01 to KD" to contact Control (KD is the callsign for our Control - neighbouring Brigades are KD, KH, KW - all our appliances can switch to their frequencies for cross-border working). If I arrived at a larger, established incident and had to report to (or relieve) Sector Commander 1, I would call him up as "ADO Pearson to Sector Commander 1", unless I knew his name.
Question - when is a Chief Officer required to respond to incidents?
Answer - In our Brigade, we are *informed* of all 2-pump calls, and it is our discretion to attend or not. Control do inform us of unusual or interesting 1-pump calls. Control direct us to proceed to larger incidents (make-ups), as we are then required to provide a standard ratio of officers to pumps (determined locally by each Brigade). I would normally attend an RTA-persons trapped if I was the nearest officer, but would not attend if a lower-ranking officer was proceeding unless there were exceptional circumstances. A few Brigades still have not given officers discretion as to whether or not to attend - not very popular when you are on your 3rd consecutive 24hr shift, and have to go to another AFD call!
I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed reading the old Manuals of Firemanship. The whole series has been revamped and republished recently - big improvement! If you can get to the NFPA library again, have a look at the new series, you might be pleasantly surprised.
03 November 2000
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Question - What is the typical structure in your area?
Answer - Generally our domestic property is 2 storey, but very little timber-framed. Generally masonry built walls with pitched, tiled roofs. Detached properties are the exception. Most property in Brighton is 100-150 years old, terraced, frequently with common roof voids across 15 or more properties. Smoke detector ownership is now very high (90% +), but a high proportion do not activate due to dead/missing batteries. New public sector housing has hard wired detection. We have plenty of domestic high rise. Average is 10-15 floors, tallest is 33 floors (built on top of an exhibition centre! That was fun when that went up!). Domestic sprinklers are very rare. We are campaigning hard to make them compulsory on new builds...we'll get there in the end, but I am sure you understand how hard it is to change 'but we've always done it like that!'.
Question - Do you usually attack structure fires with hard high pressure hose or soft low pressure hose?
Answer - Over 90% of our domestic fires are extinguished using only 3/4" hosereel tubing, flowing about 90 litres/min at 30 bar (about 13 UK gall/min at 450 lb/in). We tend to get in real close, using indirect attack (fog attack) until the fire is well suppressed, then direct attack with a wide-angle spray. If we use soft delivery hose, we use either 45mm or 70 mm hose at a pressure of about 4 bar (1 3/4" or 2 1/2" at 60 lb/in). A standard pump carries about 1800 litres water, so we can last about 20 min (or 10 min using both reels) before we run out - in the towns we will have a hydrant on most corners, out in the sticks we generally have a hydrant every 1/2 mile or so.
I am happy to be an attributed source on your site - feel free to include my email address in case people want to dispute / follow-up anything I have said.
[ADO Gary Pearson - gpearson@redhotant.com]
Right now in the UK we are experiencing some of the worst flooding we have seen for 400 years - maybe longer, but that's as far as our records go back. About 3 weeks ago, a local river burst its banks in Lewes. We lost 2 fire stations, brigade stores, vehicle workshops, BA workshops, Operations Command HQ and or mobilising centre. Local crew worked continuously for more than 24 hrs (I did 40 hrs straight), some went home to find the whole ground floor flooded and water 3 feet up the wall in the first floor.
At the same time we handled nearly a month's worth of calls in 24 hrs. End result? 40+ appliances and their kit [equipment] needed servicing and decontaminating (at temporary workshops). 200 firefighters needed replacement kit (contaminated clothing) - all kit in stores, wet and contaminated. Control evacuated to temporary mobilising centre, then new mobilising centre jury-rigged at another fire station within 48 hrs. Not a single call missed or passed to a neighbouring brigade. All pretty spectacular headaches. To our knowledge, many brigades have had to deal with spate calls due to flooding, but none have ever had to handle them at the same time as taking such a beating on their own infrastructure. Since then, the rain and wind has just kept coming. It will be after Christmas before we are back to near normal.
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