Standby Moves

[Bgjm21]

How does you brigade operate standby moves to cover for appliance training/operational incidents?

north of the border we have moved from backfilling all W/T stations within 30 mins of its appliance unavailable by using a second appliance from a multipump station to only carrying out standbys if surrounding stations are also empty (Because so many of our second pumps are off the run) 

does your brigade operate similarly? Has there been any operational knock on effects for example we have noticed it takes longer for additional appliances to attend on make ups etc. 

Cheers.

[Becile]

Lots of brigades use a tool called DCT.(dynamic cover tool)

DCT

[Messyshaw]

What a marvellous bit of kit the DCT is to ensure every fire gets attended within 10 mins.

Mind you, 30 years ago such moves were done by skilled humans who using the outdated risk measuring tool - the 'A to D' risk system,  aimed to get an appliance to a fire in city centre and large town within 5 mins

So the attendance times are doubled to allow cuts to op staff, appliances and backroom staff like in control - yet its spun as progress?

🤔🤔

[Rory-495]

Not sure how it was done in LFB but before I left we had an SR day off the run for training, never had a standby appliance all day. So our area had no immediate fire cover for several hours.

Previously when I started we used to always get cover

[Becile]

Oh you cynic @Messyshaw, set the times at what you like.

(I,'m not neccesarily disagreeing though !)

Heres a thought..

A -D great if your in the city or semi built up area, why should folks who live a bit more rural wait the 20 minutes, (why a large town and not a small town) based on what ? Does the fire burn slower, is the life risk different ?maybe they are cleverer in the smaller towns with better fire protection .

Flipping your comment on its head a bit, when I joined we had A-D risk. During my time at a certain station ground due to losing A-D, nearly all the station ground(classed as D) got a one in ten and two in 16 atrendance actually benefitting Joe public.

[Messyshaw]

@Becile Cynical? Moi?😉

Of course you are right, the A to D risk system wasnt foolproof, indeed it was a hugely blunt tool.  It was based on written descriptions of an area that were often wildly misused to downgrade cover.

I would find it difficult to justify a 20 min attendance in all but the most rural areas. But its not about people in rural areas being treated unfairly. Its about risk

It is clear that a city centre area with huge buildings, some multi-storey and perhaps many HMOs and low grade single staircase hotels would present a different risk profile than a village with a church, a shop, a few farms and 2000  x2 storey homes, especially in relation to self rescue (ie self evacuation).

An HMO in central London may well end up in a ladder rescue or turn into a fatality. This of course needs a prompt attendance
Whereas a fatal fire in typical  suburban 1930s area further out, the person is almost always dead before the 999 call is made

[Aspire]

3 hours ago, Rory-495 said:

Not sure how it was done in LFB but before I left we had an SR day off the run for training, never had a standby appliance all day. So our area had no immediate fire cover for several hours.

Previously when I started we used to always get cover

LFB use DCT too as well. Not sure where you were based but there are more than a few stations that will not always need to be filled when out due to local stations being able to maintain the attendance standard from base. 

For instance, our closest 2 stations are probably Shadwell and Whitechapel at just a mile apart… no need to backfill Whitechapel as Shadwell and Shoreditch (1.2mile away) can comfortably maintain the 6min standard with time to spare.

That being said, I am not naive enough to believe that a machine is moved every single time it should be, but just giving an idea as why some stations aren’t covered. Its bigger picture stuff, rather than just the ground.

The reason you used to get cover before is because it was pre-planned, whereas now, it is left to control to do it dynamically in real time in relation to what is happening across the capital, this is more intelligent.

[Dyson]

Rory you’ve left London now, you can stop moaning about LFB and move on with your life ! 🤩😂

For clarity….

The LFB are achieving 1 in 6 and 2 in 8, throughout the Brigade area. Including outer stations where the risk profile is largely rural. That’s quite remarkable isn’t it? I live out in the counties within a village on the outskirts of a cathedral city. The nearest machine is RDS. There is absolutely no way they are going to achieve that standard here, and tbh I don't expect it. 

[Percy]

Having seen for myself how good the DCT is at continually calculating predicted attendance times and autonomously controlling standby moves to minimise distance and times (in test mode at least, I’m not sure if any FRS allow it operate in full auto pilot, even in Surrey where we used it first it used to give options to Con Ops that could either be selected or overridden), I extolled it’s virtues to our people a while ago only for us to keep the same ‘system’ that is as far from being technologically advanced imaginable and which would not look out of place in Braidwoods era. 🙄🤦🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️
 

But to answer the OP, we don’t do standbys at all, unless if it’s Armageddon, Plague of Locusts, Soviet Invasion, in fact despite actually having a ‘standby’ tone to separate it from a Firecall tone or Life Risk tone, I’ve only heard it once in over four years.

[Messyshaw]

6 hours ago, Dyson said:

The LFB are achieving 1 in 6 and 2 in 8, throughout the Brigade area. Including outer stations where the risk profile is largely rural. 

Be careful of LFB statistics, they sometimes tell porkies.😮

I would be amazed if the LFB could get a second pump to Harefield (Ruislip's patch) in 8 mins - as the second pump (Hillingdon)would have to travel at a constant 50+ MPH all the way to get there in that time 😮

[Bgjm21]

Cheers for the reply’s, has there been any negative impacts from the complete absence of standbys @Percy? 
it must hugely increase attendance times in areas when an incident is on-going? 

[Rory-495]

Messy following on from that, Harrow would always be second to Harefield the whole time I was there and like you said its a hell of a journey to hit that target attendance. I have to admit there's is a lot of.... massaging, of statistics sometimes 🤣

[Keith]

From the article:

Quote

Built around five years ago, the ORH Dynamic Tool Cover is state-of-the-art technology and is unique to SFRS.

Don't think they'll be getting any awards from any of the tech companies, five year old technology is hardly state of the art. Wonder how many versions of iOS or Android there has been in that time.

[Matt]

Looks like its used within Healthcare quite a bit and looks like it was initially used in healthcare then adapted for use within Fire.  

Majority of smaller Brigades won't need anything like this I guess as they can manage things but I suppose in London or other bigger Brigades its a bit different.  

[Percy]

23 hours ago, Keith said:

From the article:

Don't think they'll be getting any awards from any of the tech companies, five year old technology is hardly state of the art. Wonder how many versions of iOS or Android there has been in that time.

Not sure why Dan Quinn’s promoting it as new in 2019? I’d been gone a year by then and it came into the Service years before.

ORH Case Study Surrey

[Fridge03]

Standby moves are quite common in my service. The ones because of jobs and make ups etc aren't too bad. But we are still sending a pump from our multi-pump stations on whole day standbys to "rural" locations, usually on-call stations that are off the run. Out of the 4 multi-pump stations, I think 3 are still doing it almost on a daily basis. 

We are also sending FFs and CMs to make up crews at on-call stations, which is only meant to happen in level 4 degradation but does seem to happen a lot more frequently than that. 

[Bgjm21]

An old topic, but an update. The inevitable finally happened and standbys have been reinstated north of the border.

[Highlander]

On 27/12/2023 at 16:15, Bgjm21 said:

An old topic, but an update. The inevitable finally happened and standbys have been reinstated north of the border.

Ours have never stopped. I'm in a 2 pump on-call station(Scottish) and regularly get called into standby for WT stations and sometimes RDS (though not very often)

[Bgjm21]

So much for a single service eh? They didn’t stop for us it just became based on who was available in surrounding stations as opposed to just covering any empty stations, however now we are back to covering just about every empty station.

I’ve also never known an RDS pump to standby a whole time station in the west either!