The Evening Star
FELIXSTOWE, England — Using on-call firefighters to deal with all 999 calls in the Felixstowe area will add around four minutes to an emergency response, it was revealed today.
Senior fire officers are planning to remove all of the resort’s full-time firefighters in a year’s time.
Latest proposals to halve the number of full-time officers at the town’s fire station in High Road West to save money is the next step in a move to having it manned purely by on-call crews.
Fire chiefs said full-time fire crews were able to reach an incident on average in five minutes 30 seconds, while on-call firefighters took nine minutes 17 seconds.
“Both attendance times satisfy our performance standards for the first fire engine responding to incidents in Felixstowe,” said assistant chief fire officer Phil Embury.
“On-call firefighter availability remains very good at Felixstowe fire station.
“In the last 12 months at least one on-call fire engine has been available for 99.9 percent of the time.
“This equates to just six hours across the 12-month period where a fire engine wasn’t available.
“Further analysis indicates this was four periods of 1.5 hours, two at the weekend, and two during the week.”
Campaigners are furious at the latest proposed changes, which will see the number of full-time firefighters on weekdays reduced from eight to four.
It could mean, due to leave, training and other commitments, that only two or three officers are on duty at any time, unable to take out a fire engine to a 999 call until enough on-call officers arrive from their work to make up the required crew numbers.
Mayor Mike Deacon has said this could mean the difference between life and death in some circumstances.
The move is set to be agreed by the county council cabinet next Tuesday and would come into effect immediately, saving £140,000 a year.
Mr Embury said the town has 21 on-call officers available, including three new officers to cover during the day.
In the past year, crews at Felixstowe had attended 221 calls, of which 77 were attended by the full-time crews, an average of 1.3 a week.
“In the event that there is an unforeseen decrease in the on-call firefighter availability at Felixstowe then additional full-time firefighters can be returned to the station to provide the necessary resilience,” he said.
Copyright 2012 Archant Regional Limited
All Rights Reserved