AFA’s

[Bgjm21]

With the news that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is to reduce its pda for afa’s from full fire response to one pump to non life risk and two to life risk calls, I was wondering what other brigades up and down the country mobilise and how this has affected call volumes and station workload? 

Are you dramatically quieter or has it been a more subtle policy? 

Cheers

[Jet]

Been the policy in LFB for at least the last seven years, although some life risks will receive more than two, notably high rise. 

[Bgjm21]

Jamie, how did this affect call volume and turnouts? Has this caught firefighters out at incidents?

[Steve]

It killed the game..... At our peak 1990, 1995 & 2003, hot summers before CFS kicked in like now and before AFA restrictions we had 250k calls. About half that now. So not only do we have the overall reducation, but only half the appliances turning out to low rise, commercial AFA's (no sleeping risk).

[Bgjm21]

Thanks for the insight Steve, interesting to see in the statistics in the other thread showing many stations still ticking over 2-5000 mobilisations despite the call challenging.

[Steve]

Yes, at the time it was all I knew so thought everywhere was like it. But the last decade or so of wider access through the internet has made me realise that just by size, density and population, we really used to be incredibly busy in LFB in the first half of my career, with station after station after station probably stretching 10 plus stations in every direction being what anyone by todays standards would call exceptionally busy. Its probably fair to say a third (30 odd) of the stations were 3000 plus, a third over 2000 and the last third from 500 to 1000.

Mainly due to A-risk attedances, AFA's, false alarms, rubbish fires and small special services such as shut in lifts and locks outs. But nonetheless, looking at the old London Firefighter magazines, the make up table showed 36 stations with 10 or more make ups per year (27 for Tottenham for the one I just looked at).

Great times, fondly remembered.

[Messyshaw]

It really had to change didn't it?

Two simultaneous large PDAs to AFAs could strip a large swath of London of fire cover. Hospitals outside of the city centre could attract between 4 and 8 appliances. Multiple calls to different buildings at Heathrow once saw Acton and Staines on  shed fire. Madness.

We lost a sub o in an RTC out west after his pump overturned on route to a Hospital AFA - was it really worth the risk when the vast majority of calls were unwanted fire signals or toast? Not really

Let' s also just consider why buildings have fire detection.  It' s to ensure those in the building are aware of a fire and can escape. There is no requirement for fire service attendance as all occupants must be able to escape without FRS help.

It was not a popular move. Frankly I do not think it went far enough. 

I recall sitting at Paddington College aged 17, msking sure i got a window seat and being amazed at how busy the local station was. Their ET went on all west end hotel AFAs and their TL on virtually everything. Those days of gone but at least the neighbours get some sleep at night now!

[HoldFast]

@Messyshaw was it sitting there and watching them turn out that made you want to join the brigade?

[Messyshaw]

@HoldFast. No, not really. I had the idea of joining since I was a kid. My mates all grew up, but I didn't . So while they went off to do proper jobs, I had to wait until I was 18. I visited fire stations, read Gordon Honeycombe's 'Red Watch' cover to cover about 150 times, and had regularly listened in to M2FN/M2FS/M2FE/M2FH and M2FHO (radio channels) so was up to date with messages and call signs before my interview. Yes it was sad but it was useful later   

I had visited my local station and a firefighter there said I should get a trade before I join in case I don't enjoy life in the fire service. It was a widely held view back then. So I was learning electrical tradecraft at the college - that is, where I wasn't looking out of the window!!!

 

[HoldFast]

I think most of us on here have all done something ‘sad’ . Maybe that’s why we’re all on a forum talking about the job we love when everyone else is off pretending they don’t really like it that much.. 

[Carl]

GMFRS have altered their response to AFAs quite a bit over the past few years, however, there are still some anomalies and Im still unsure why their is a certain PDA to one alarm and not to another. 

[Bgjm21]

Could you provide an example of what you mean if possible Carl? Did you have a policy similar to the one pump on blues and it changed back or? Cheers

[Carl]

I should have my myself clearer, sorry. We have a 1 pump attendance to most AFA's. However there are differences in areas such as the hospital. I have noticed that sometimes I have 1 pump attend and other times up to 3 pumps on the PDA. I have not been able to work out what is causing it. I accept that the hospital is a life risk but I am going have to look back to see if I can find out why.

Attendance is still far better than it used to be. Not sure if you remember but we had a period of "Drive to Arrive" which meant we attended all AFAs without Blues and at normal road speed. Thankfully this was reverted back to attendance on blues a couple of years back now. 

[Bgjm21]

No trouble Carl, thanks for the insight.

With regards to the different levels of attendance could it potentially be due to times of day? I know that’s on the cards now north of the wall..

“Drive to arrive” was a bit before my time but had heard about it in hushed tones. Glad to see there is atleast an emergency response again.

[Keith]

Possibly down to crews / officers requesting the PDA being increased due to either large complex layouts or the risk on site? Normal attendance for us to an AFA is one pump on blues, but we can request an increase if the risk warrants it and this has been done for some hospitals.

Looking at this from another angle imagine if we didn't attend AFA's at NHS premises, think of the number of turnouts this would cut.

[HoldFast]

Could be down to the OIC of the control room at the time. I worked in control briefly and sometimes if a call came in for a certain premise the crew or watch manager might say to add another pump onto the PDA. Sometimes depending on the time of the day or the next nearest available resources at the time or sometimes just because they got a ‘feeling’.

[Jet]

I'm of the opinion that we should not be attending any AFAs where there isn't a specific life risk. And where there is, it should be full attendance. None of this one pump nonsense. The fire service has been bringing knives to gun fights for too long now...

[CaptainFlack]

In regards to AFAs and blues I got told off the brother that it is only called an AFA on the way back to the station, when the sheet gets printed it's a building fire and it's a full response 

[Cashybai]

Totally agree Jamie. Still no clear policy on what to do if the place is locked up with no key holder on route, and still got the post Grenfell 5 pumps to high rise afa's.