Two Riders? Really?

[Messyshaw]

I had some contingency planning meetings with a unnamed fire and rescue service recently who told me they regularly turn out from on-call stations with three riders - and occasionally two!

Yes 2 on a pump to property fires!!

I was gob smacked.  They have risked assessed it and there are strict rules about what these 2 firefighters can and can't do, but bloody hell, how can that be a safe system of work?

Does anyone know of a FRS that ride with 2 to fires?. I am hoping its a one off😳

[Carl]

Less than 4 and we take the pump off, never ride with less in GMFRS, never.

[Br9mp81]

I know of 1 county that would if pushed would send 2 RDS pumps with low crew to make one up on attandance

[J.Tredgett]

4 riders minimum on the first pump and 3 on the second pump to certain taskings.

Only time I have ever known it to happen is a make up for water on a fire in the open for example, the extra crewing on the fireground is also a bonus. Or both pumps rolling out together to an RTC to make up crewing. I don't believe the pump with 3 riders would be turned out to a job were it was going to be first in attendance. 

[Matt]

North Yorkshire can turn their TRV pumps out with 3 but will increase the PDA depending on the job.

Lincolnshire did not sure on current situation ride with 3 to certain jobs mainly make ups for certain roles such as water ferrying etc.

I know a number of Brigades that use small fire unit type vehicles that ride with 2 and come a cropper when its a house fire!

[TandA]

Essex ride 4 minimum (and 4 maximum too during current Covid situation) to everything.  Anything less is not a safe system of work in my opinion.  Surely any service riding two on anything other than a special can’t have a robust risk assessment in place and have provided their staff with sufficient training on safely responding with two riders?

[Dyson]

It’s long established that we need 9 firefighters to safely begin to deal with a building fire. 

my Brigade will send 8 I have to admit, as on 2 appliance stations we ride 4 and 4 routinely. And you do miss that extra body. 

anything less that 4 on a machine, it’s OTR. 

[Noddy]

We ride 3 on our BRV‘s 

[Luminoki]

Was the service Pontypandy Messy? Seriously i only thought the airports ride 2 on their crash tenders

[Kinmel]

13 hours ago, Dyson said:

And you do miss that extra body. 

This is the most shocking post I have ever read on this forum.

How has it come to pass that an OiC deems himself under resourced and fails to make up ?

Remember the old adage " use it or lose it", right now it appears lost. 

During the budget cuts of the early 1980s some brigades cut PDAs to 1 pump for house fires.  That soon stopped across the country when nationwide, J.O.s began to book mobile to an incident with " make pumps 2 for BA "

[Messyshaw]

@LuminokiNo sadly this is not Sam and Elvis, this is a proper & very proud local authority fire service.

I cannot say which one, but like many F&RS's they have massive problems recruiting and retaining on call staff. Lots of their area struggles during the day. So this crew of 2 is supposed to be a stop gap to assess and carry out first aid measures until a properly crewed pump arrives.

They also have a team of full time peripatetic firefighters from a wholesome pump that has been cut who spread out and are sent to stand by (usually alone) at on call stations where its known they can't mobilise a full crew. How boring would that be?

10/10 for ingenuity from management to keep 5 or 6 on call station on the run, but a city has lost its pump to make this possible

But its the crew of 2 that is scary. If a second pump with 3 arrived, even then, resources would be tight to mount a BA attack in anything bigger than a small cottage

[Dyson]

8 minutes ago, Kinmel said:

This is the most shocking post I have ever read on this forum.

How has it come to pass that an OiC deems himself under resourced and fails to make up ?

Remember the old adage " use it or lose it", right now it appears lost. 

During the budget cuts of the early 1980s some brigades cut PDAs to 1 pump for house fires.  That soon stopped across the country when nationwide, J.O.s began to book mobile to an incident with " make pumps 2 for BA "

Think you might want to reread my post .....

[WTTJ]

But when you're on call or at a more remote wholetime station, you may have to wait a significant amount of time before the 2nd or 3rd appliance arrives, whether that has come from PDAs or a make up is irrelevant. If you're under resourced you are under resourced until the resources arrive, not until you make up.

[DualContract]

My Brigade decided to go down the route of riding 3 on retained pumps if not enough crew... even insulted our intelligence by sending us JOs on some training which in short told us to make up if can’t deal with the incident upon arrival 🙄 Yeah thanks for that!