August/September Firefighter 2023
Firefighters reveal “terrifying truth” of under-resourced Fire Service in Albion hotel fire response
Second fire breaks out in Albion Hotel, Brighton a week after initial blaze East Sussex and surrounding areas left without adequate fire cover following initial incident as crews scrambled Comparison with 1998 fire in the same building reveals large-scale cuts to fire service, putting lives and...
23 fire engines a day unavailable as London marks anniversary of record temperatures
Data obtained by the Fire Brigades Union has revealed that, so far this July, an average of 23 of London’s fire engines have been unavailable every day due to understaffing. This amounts to around one in every six of London’s fire engines. A peak of 28 fire engines were unavailable on July 16th...
London wildfire response failures were "negligence driven by cuts"
The London Fire Brigade has today released a Major Incident Review looking at its response to the July 2022 wildfires. It confirms that a shortage of crew and fire appliances hampered the response. Since 2010, around one in five firefighter jobs have been cut, while the risk of extreme weather...
FBU READIES CAMPAIGN FOR JOBS
Just months after the settlement of the UK-wide pay dispute, firefighters are once again facing a battle – this time over cuts to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS). Following the announcement of a “flat cash” budget from the Scottish government between 2022 and 2027, the service is...
New flagship campaign
At our annual conference in May, more than 100 delegates came together to debate the FBU’s campaigns and activities for the coming year. It was a lively event, on which we report in detail in this issue. Most prominent was the launch of a new flagship campaign – Equality Matters – to fight for...
Scottish wildfire rages as fire service faces cuts, warns union
Cuts to the number of fire appliances in Fife and Tayside are the latest in a long line of cuts affecting the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. The latest cuts will see appliances removed from over ten stations, including four in Fife with Methil, Dunfermline and Glenrothes each losing one fire...
Lobbies and protests stop cuts
As firefighters rallied outside, Nottinghamshire council reversed £2m of cuts to the local fire service. FBU members in the region won this U-turn by taking action against the threat. Planned cuts would have seen several fire stations lose firefighters, cover time and appliances. After the initial...
FBU slams government’s ‘war on workers’ in first budget
The first budget of the Sunak government, delivered on 15 March, might have been an opportunity for the new Prime Minister to set out a change of course The government set out to “reassure the markets” after Liz Truss’s disastrous budget last autumn. But “reassuring the markets”, in the language of...
