Firefighters are warning that the slow and scrambled response to a fire at a hotel on the Isle of Wight shows how close the fire service is to being unable to keep the community safe. The warning comes as the service plans to implement yet more cuts.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight fire service was mobilised to a fire at Cygnet Hotel in Sandown on Saturday evening. Although the hotel was derelict, it was treated as a ‘persons reported’ fire because it had been occupied by a homeless person.
Despite this, the service was unable to initially send the right number of fire engines (three) due to the poor availability of appliances on the island. Instead, it initially sent two, leaving just two fire engines available to cover the whole of the island.
The service was also unable to provide a second aerial ladder platform, again due to a lack of firefighters. When the second aerial did eventually respond it was only possible because it called on retained firefighters and used on coming nightshift firefighters on overtime to piece together a crew.
At 18:22, just under an hour after the original call, senior firefighters made the call to ‘make pumps six’ (to bring the total number of fire engines up to six due to the seriousness of the incident). However, these were not available on the island and fire engines had to cross the Solent from the mainland by ferry to respond.
A total of five further fire engines were ferried across from the mainland to provide fire cover for the island, leaving the mainland short.
Dave Hunt, FBU brigade secretary for Hampshire and Isle of Wight, said:
“What we saw on Saturday was a scrapheap challenge approach to running a fire service – firefighters were forced to scrape together resources which should be on hand day and night.
“There are supposed to be 11 fire engines on the Isle of Wight – but due to cuts most of those sit empty. We are now facing yet more cuts to firefighter numbers. That will make things even worse.
“Residents on the Isle of Wight have a right to expect that if a fire happens, the right amount of help will come in the right amount of time. Clearly, they can’t count on that.
“This must be a wake-up call. These cuts must not be allowed to go ahead.”
Steve Wright, Fire Brigades Union general secretary, said:
“Incidents like these are a damning indictment of the way that the fire and rescue service has been plunged into crisis by austerity. We have lost one in five firefighter jobs since 2010, and that is putting the lives of firefighters and members of the public at risk.
“Central government must step up and reverse these cuts. In the meantime, fire and rescue services like Hampshire and the Isle of Wight need to listen to firefighters and residents, and think again.”
