Time for ambulances in rural fire stations, conference told

Now was the time to “put ambulances in the fire stations” and allow the fire service to provide an emergency medical service, particularly in rural areas where ambulance cover was very stretched, the annual conference of the Chief Fire Officers Association heard on Wednesday.

The suggestion had the endorsement of two Government Ministers, the conference in Killarney, Co Kerry, was told.

Dublin Fire Brigade was unique in the UK and Ireland in having an emergency medical service involving 12 ambulances, and had provided an ambulance service since Victorian times, the conference was told.

“For most of Europe, ambulance and fire and rescue are one service,” Brian Sweeney, international adviser to the board of the National Director for Fire and Emergency Management, said.

He said the ambulance service was unable to cope with rural life while there was spare capacity in the fire service.

The training of all fire personnel as paramedics and fully integrated fire and ambulance service was the way forward, Mr Sweeney said.

“You have an ambulance service stretching to near capacity and a sister fire service on declining number of calls - now is the time to integrate this service. . . now is the time to put ambulances in the fire stations,” he said.

Emergency calls to the country’s 217 fire stations had declined steadily from 60,000 in 2001-2002 to 40,000 last year .

“Don’t close the fire station but make better use of the stations already there,” Mr Sweeney said.

In his address, the chairman of the Chief Fire Officers Association and chief fire officer with Dublin Fire Brigade, Pat Fleming , said the retained fire service could provide “a vital layer of support” to hard pressed ambulance services.

“We have well-trained people used to working in emergency situations, used to responding rapidly used to working as a team and who don’t panic in an emergency situation.”

One of the strengths of the Dublin system was that both ambulance and fire engines could be mobilised from the same station, and all personnel were “dual skilled”.

“The retained fire service with its well located station infrastructure, rapid emergency response and well trained personnel is an obvious resource,” Mr Fleming said.

Both the Ministers for Health, Leo Varadkar, and Environment and Local Government, Alan Kelly, had indicated their support for such a collaborative approach, Mr Fleming said.

Local authorities

Mr Sweeney, who has been involved in an external validation of the fire service in Ireland over the past 18 months, urged that the fire service remain under the local authorities.

While there were issues about co-operation between different counties, he said any moves to centralise the service involving 2,200 retained fire men and 1200 full time fire fighters should be resisted.

“My advice is stay as a local service, as it has been for 200 years,” he said.

Most firemen lived within 1 and a half miles of their station and part-time firemen were mobilised within 14 minutes of a fire being ignited, which he said was “pretty decent”.

Full-time fire men already in their stations were mobilised within 10 minutes.

According to a review being studied by fire chiefs, there are more fire engines than necessary.

“In some areas of the country, they are positively breeding,” he said. This was because a lot of “legacy” equipment was being kept rather than scrapped. However the fleet, at 800 vehicles, needed to be pared back to around 640 because of storage issues.

There was a need for greater sharing of equipment and training between the authorities rather than an isolated approach. In one relatively small area he had come across, there were five to six engines, where perhaps one was necessary.

With 6.4 fatalities per million in population, Ireland was “fairly fire safe” and on a par with country’s like Finland, Norway, Denmark and Scotland.

However Celtic countries such as Ireland and Scotland, which has a figure of 8.2 deaths per million, had high issues with fire and alcohol, Mr Sweeney said.

“It’s what we do when we have a drink. . . we have a drink and then we cook, we have a drink and then we smoke,” he said.

The conference continues and will focus on Thursday on a stress management survey conducted among almost 900 fire service personnel.