Five on a fire engine

Conference reaffirms its strongly held position that a fire engine should be crewed by a minimum of five firefighters (supervisory officer and four firefighters).

Conference recognises the dangerous delays in the time it takes for firefighters to carry out rescues as a crew of four and that in some circumstances firefighters, in a crew of four, will have to wait for back up before committing fire crews into a burning building.

Conference notes that throughout the Covid-19 pandemic many brigade managers and Chief Fire Officers, all too easily, took the lazy unsafe option of dropping fire engines to four when faced with crewing pressures in Services already cut to the bone by 10 years of Tory led austerity.

Conference condemns this dangerous practice that is becoming all too common place. The public we serve deserve better. Our communities deserve a fully crewed fire engine of five firefighters, ready to safely effect rescues and extinguish property fires. Our Members deserve the safety of five firefighters on a fire engine.

Conference calls out the inactivity and dereliction of duty by so called ‘public good’ organisations, such as the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Fire Standards Board, in this area.

Conference instructs the Executive Council to pursue a national standard of a minimum of five firefighters on a fire engine.