East Sussex firefighters have continued to express grave concerns over breathing apparatus training for stand-in staff that are due to work during the next period of strike action.
Firefighters’ worries emerged during the last strike and, frustrated with a lack of progress from East Sussex Fire Authority, the Fire Brigades Union says they will now take their concerns to the Health and Safety Executive.
FBU East Sussex Chair Simon Herbert said: “This contradicts national standards, East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service’s own training standards and most of all simple common sense.
“Wearing breathing apparatus is one of the most hazardous activities that a firefighter can undertake and sending out crews that have not proved competence in the use of them is ludicrous.”
East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service have told local representatives of the Fire Brigades Union that stand-in staff, many of whom may not have worn breathing apparatus for many years, have undertaken merely one day’s refresher training.
Firefighters will again walk out across the country on 19 October, this time for 5 hours, over ‘unsafe, unfair and unworkable’ pension proposals by central government.
In keeping with long-standing national and local standards, the Health and Safety Executive recently issued recommendations that re-enforced the need to maintain and prove competency in the use of breathing apparatus.
The Health and Safety At Work Act states that employers must provide ‘such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of employees.’
Resilience crews have not had to prove competency in the wearing of breathing apparatus and have instead deemed themselves suitably trained through self-assessment.
Local FBU officials have raised these concerns with both Chief Fire Officer Prichard and also the Local Fire Authority, however neither has responded to their concerns.
During the previous strike period on 25 September, resilience crews, which included ESFRS Chief Fire Officer wore breathing apparatus to extinguish a bus that caught fire, despite the fact that FBU officials have stated that resilience crews must not wear breathing apparatus at emergency incidents until they have received suitable training and proved competence, otherwise they will be putting public safety and their own safety at risk.
Following the incident East Sussex FBU Secretary Mark Brown said: “We are extremely concerned that resilience crews have not been suitably trained or assessed in the wearing of breathing apparatus. This needs rectifying immediately.”
Photos have been released on social media sites confirming the FBU’s fears about safety.
These photos from the bus fire show a resilience officer incorrectly wearing breathing apparatus with incorrect personal protective equipment and incorrect safety systems in place.
Firefighters argue that the resilience crew member would have been injured or worse — and therefore unable to make any needed rescues — had he entered a structural building fire to make rescues.
