Health and Safety

Firefighters in Essex are planning to strike next Thursday (6 th August) in protest at further cuts to firefighter jobs which the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) says are set to decimate the county’s fire and rescue services. Essex County Fire and Rescue Service (ECFRS) have already suffered some...

Firefighters have called for urgent action to tackle the soaring number of flood related emergencies they are being asked to respond to. Firefighters attended just twelve flood incident emergency calls out of 54 between midnight and 5am last Friday (17 July) due to the fire and rescue service being...

Calls for a public inquiry into the £1 million Essex Emergency Fire Control fiasco continue following the new Fire Minister’s visit to the Essex Fire and Rescue HQ at Kelvedon Park on Friday. The mobilising system failure also affects Bedfordshire. The FBU has asked the new Fire Minister and Essex...

Fire Brigades Union (FBU) officials and members in Staffordshire say the fire and rescue authority is out of touch with the public who feel chronically let down over cuts to services in their area. In spite of reserves of £11M, the fire and rescue authority on Monday announced 22 full time...

Members of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) in Staffordshire are fearing for the safety of their communities ahead of a meeting of the fire authority on Monday 13th July, when the fire and rescue service is expected to announce cuts of £5.7m by 2019/2020. The announcement will follow a lengthy...

Claims by the London Fire Brigade that firefighters are well prepared for another 7/7 style terror attack in the capital have been challenged by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU). The radios issued to firefighters for underground use don’t work, according to the FBU’s regional secretary for London, Paul...

An East Sussex firefighter is very seriously ill in hospital following an incident during a breathing apparatus training session last Thursday, 25 June. The firefighter was on the fourth day of his initial breathing apparatus training when the incident occurred. He was immediately rushed to hospital...

Firefighters and emergency 999 control staff in Essex have been taking industrial action over plans to cut 179 firefighting jobs. Equivalent to a quarter of all frontline staff the cuts are the largest ever proposed in any one year in the UK fire and rescue service. Essex Country Fire and Rescue...