London Fire Brigade Review Firefighting Tactics & Training

[Paul Grimwood]

I'm well known for 'taking a swipe' at those in high position who fail to address key issues affecting firefighter safety. It has caused me a lot of 'flack' in the past.

However I applaud the actions of Fire Commissioner Sir Ken Knight and London Fire Brigade who are finally addressing some serious neglect of fire-ground training issues over the past few years. There have been a series of 'near miss' incidents in London over recent months where several firefighters almost lost their lives at fires. It is being acknowledged that more training is needed with a 'back to basics' approach at fires.

London are making available an additional £1.75 million to provide additional training resources. The extra investment will focus on the risk critical areas of breathing apparatus wearing, gaining real fire experience and incident command. They are further evaluating their current tactical and command approaches through an operational review assessment.

Now those of you who know me will appreciate how pleased I am to hear this news, in fact I'm ecstatic! I have been campaigning publicly for over a decade to get the training of UK firefighters back on track. When I was told a Metro brigade in the UK were just last month commenting on how they believed  'less realism' was actually needed in training firefighters to deal with fires, I was deeply shocked. Our firefighters of today need even more 'realistic' training than ever due to the reduction in 'real fire' experience.

What is absolutely key in London's plans is the additional training for Crew Commanders on ‘tactical decision making’ during incidents, provided through a new two day residential course.  A similar two day course for fire chiefs will also be introduced. (Let us hope they get the content right)!

Take note UK fire brigades in particular, this targeted training of firefighters comes as a result of several 'near miss' incidents. Don't wait for YOUR firefighters to allow some form of 'systemic breakdown' or lack of experience to lead to similar events in YOUR response area!

[messy]

Paul

Sadly, I would suggest it's not just near misses that have caused this extra allocation of resources. The Inquest into the FF fatalities at Bethnal Green did not show LFB's training in good light. I am delighted that money - and especially time- is to be put aside for this training.

Station work routines have been hijacked by CFS and other commitments which have taken priority over training, instead of being secondary to ensuring operational readiness/fitness of personnel.

I have mischieviously 'tested' a number of Station Commandrs/managers in the past when they have commented on the lack of recorded training on my watch. I suggest to them that there is not enough time for for me to provide both quality training and the paperwork. Which would they prefer is omitted?

100% of them have said "Give me the paperwork and catch up with the training later".

An indication perhaps, of the effects of squeezing outside management systems/practises into 21st century firefighting. As a result the training audit trail is deemed more important that the actual training. Let's hope LFB management look at this too.

[Paul Grimwood]

Messy you are so right! The outcome of Bethnal Green must have also had a massive impact on this decision to inject some badly needed cash into training resources in London.

These 'back to basics' approaches should be looked upon as a stringent warning to all UK brigades not to fall foul of complacency in their individual training regimes.

Fire officers ARE making errors in their decision making; Firefighters ARE failing to recognise basic warning signs of 'abnormal' fire phenomena; and basic fireground actions that might have appeared as 'second nature' 20-30 years ago are now being forgotton.

We cannot forget the 'high risk' 'low freqency' response to structural firefighting that forms the very foundation upon which our service was developed. If we do, there will be further 'preventable' tragedies amongst our own firefighters.

[Billy]

We carried out a "back to basics" foundation training course within part of Strathclyde in July this year and it was very favourable received by all.
All services are in the same boat and I have said in numerous occasions "as the frequency of fires decreases, we must increase our training proportionately"
This will ensure skills, knowledge and understanding are shared by all.
I applaud London for having the vision to invest in the safety of crews where it really matters and although we have had a major shift towards Community safety strategies, our core business and the area where crews are at greatest risk is still when we attend emergency incidents and we have to ensure any training replicates this.

[wee brian]

Bout time to - nice one Ken.

[Mike Buckley]

I remember looking at this in the late 80's when the HSE produced a document on training for hazardous jobs. The basic drift of the document was that training could be realistic and involve real hazard provided that the hazard was introduced incrementally.

I am afraid the avoid risk and litigation culture does tend to overwhelm the realist view that dealing with fires and emergencies is not a safe business and the training needs to reflect this. This will mean that people may get hurt during training and exercises but I always maintain that the role of exercises in particular was to find the holes, not show off.

If accidents happen on the drill ground or exercise site where the conditions are controlled they are much more likely to happen on the fireground at 3am on a cold wet windy January morning.