London firefighters attended the scene of a serious fire in Hackney this morning after strikebreaking crews failed to properly extinguish the blaze when they tackled it last night.
Local residents took dramatic pictures of the fire as it swept through a house in Malpas Road at around 7.00pm. A private strikebreaking force employed by the London Fire Brigade was sent to the scene, and the brigade confirmed that the fire was extinguished soon after.
However, professional firefighters returning from a 24-hour strike visited the scene at around 11.30 this morning to discover the roof and other parts of the building had reignited. It took them ninety minutes to bring the situation under control.
Fire Brigades Union members were striking in protest at government attacks to their pensions.
Matt Wrack, general secretary of the FBU, said: ‘The fire minister, Brandon Lewis, has claimed that “robust contingency arrangements” mean it is “business as usual” during FBU strikes. But the reignition of this serious fire demonstrates that claim to be ludicrous.
‘The strikebreaking crews are woefully undertrained and ill-prepared. They failed to properly extinguish this fire, leaving our members to go back there today to do the job properly.
‘It is time for the government to realise the damage their actions are doing to the reputation of the fire service and to settle this dispute. Our members do not want to be on strike. But they are being treated appallingly by a government who wants to destroy their pensions by forcing up contribution rates to unsustainable levels and imposing an unrealistic and unworkable pension scheme which takes no account of the work firefighters actually do.”
