Avon Fire And Rescue Service
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Avon Fire & Rescue Service (AF&RS) is the
fire and rescue service A firefighter is a first responder and rescuer extensively trained in firefighting, primarily to extinguish conflagration, hazardous fires that threaten life, property, and the environment as well as to rescue people and in some cases or jurisd ...
covering the
unitary authorities A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...
of
Bath and North East Somerset Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES) is a unitary authority district in England. Bath and North East Somerset Council was created on 1 April 1996 following the abolition of the county of Avon. It is part of the ceremonial county of Somerset. Th ...
,
Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
,
North Somerset North Somerset is a unitary authorities of England, unitary district in Somerset, South West England. Whilst its area covers part of the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Somerset, it is administered independently of the non ...
, and
South Gloucestershire South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, South West England. Towns in the area include Yate, Chipping Sodbury, Thornbury, Filton, Patchway and Bradley Stoke, the latter three forming part ...
in
South West England South West England, or the South West of England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities and ...
. The headquarters of the service is co-located with
Avon and Somerset Police Avon and Somerset Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement in the county of Somerset and in four districts that used to be in the defunct county of Avon: Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and So ...
in Portishead, and the service has 22
fire station __NOTOC__ A fire station (also called a fire house, fire hall, firemen's hall, or engine house) is a structure or other area for storing firefighting apparatuses such as fire engines and related vehicles, personal protective equipment, fire h ...
s across its area.


History

Avon Fire Brigade was created in 1974, when the county of Avon was created. In 1996, the county was abolished and four separate unitary authorities were created. Administration of the service was taken over by a joint fire authority made up of councillors from the four unitary authorities. In 2004, the Fire and Rescue Services Act was passed. To better reflect the changing roles and responsibilities of the fire service, Avon Fire Brigade changed its name to Avon Fire & Rescue Service.
Fleur Lombard Fleur Lombard (27 May 1974 – 4 February 1996) was the first female firefighter to die on duty in peacetime Britain. Biography Fleur Lombard was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, UK. The plaque at the site her ashes are interred records h ...
(1974 – 4 February 1996) was the first female
firefighter A firefighter is a first responder and rescuer extensively trained in firefighting, primarily to extinguish hazardous fires that threaten life, property, and the environment as well as to rescue people and in some cases or jurisdictions also ...
to die on duty in peacetime Britain, while Avon Fire and Rescue Service were fighting a supermarket fire in Staple Hill. The Fleur Lombard Bursary Fund provides travel grants so that a junior member of any UK fire and rescue service may visit the fire service of another country. In September 2017, the service's headquarters was moved from Temple Back, Bristol to the
Avon and Somerset Police Avon and Somerset Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement in the county of Somerset and in four districts that used to be in the defunct county of Avon: Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and So ...
headquarters in Portishead. Following the move, an unexpected number of support staff left the service, resulting in recruitment delays in finding replacement staff.


Community safety

The role of a modern fire and rescue service has increased from fighting fires to cover the core functions of 'Protecting, Preventing and Responding'. AF&RS now has a wider remit promoting community safety through events and education work, alongside attending a range of incidents and emergencies from road traffic collisions and fires, to flooding and chemical spills. The fire service aims to cut the risk of fire developing in the first place by promoting safety messages to local residents and encouraging people to have working smoke alarms. AF&RS runs community safety campaigns. The summer 2009 campaign, 'Be BBQ Safe', included a hard hitting interview with a BBQ fire burns victim who spent the previous summer in intensive care after using nitro to light his BBQ. The ''Car Clear'' scheme was launched in 2001, with the intention of promptly removing abandoned vehicles from streets. This eliminates the possibility of arson attacks.


Operations

In meeting their mission, vision and values, Avon Fire & Rescue Service utilises a range of emergency equipment. These include 81 appliances, 51 pumping appliances, four turntable ladders and 16 special appliances. Adding to the available emergency response can also be their boats, pods, fork lift trucks, a Control Emergency Evacuation Vehicle and a telescopic handler. In 2009 and 2011 the service added two PolyBilt-bodied Combined Aerial Rescue Platforms (CARP). The first began service at Patchway fire station and was subsequently moved to Speedwell fire station. The second was assigned to Bedminster fire station. However, both of these appliances have been withdrawn from service by July 2016 and the bodywork has been removed from the chassis to allow for the chassis to be used for new specialist appliances. Also, in 2009, to better serve the public Yate fire station was upgraded to "whole-time/retained status". Firefighters would now be ready to respond from the fire station 24/7. This was a preparedness upgrade from the previously "day-crewed" status of 08:0017:00 hours daily and firefighters responding from their homes and work places. As part of the "Investing for the Future" programme, which began in 2014, Kingswood fire station was closed for refurbishment. The Kingswood fire station project was completed and subsequently Speedwell fire station closed permanently all in 2015. In 2016, the Chairman of Avon Fire Authority, Councillor Peter Abraham, stated "The regeneration of Keynsham town centre meant we needed to move the existing Keynsham fire station. This has provided us with an opportunity to amalgamate the part-time station at Keynsham and Brislington fire station, which will both close, into a new Wholetime fire station at Hicks Gate" which is situated by the Bristol ring road and opened on 19 April 2016.


Performance

In 2018/2019, every fire and rescue service in
England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...
was subjected to a statutory inspection by
His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), formerly Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), has statutory responsibility for the inspection of the police forces of England and Wales, and since ...
(HIMCFRS). Another cycle of inspections was carried out starting in 2021.The inspections investigate how well the service performs in each of three areas. On a scale of outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate, Avon Fire and Rescue Service was rated as follows:


Criticisms


Discrimination in recruitment

In 2009, it emerged that the service had banned white males from four out of five of its recruitment workshops, with two only open to ethnic minorities and two for females only. The practice was criticised as illegal and divisive, with MP
Philip Davies Philip Andrew Davies (born 5 January 1972) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Shipley in West Yorkshire since the 2005 general election. A member of the Conservative Party, he is the most rebellious se ...
noting "the only way we are ever going to have complete equality in the job market is to give people jobs based on merit, regardless of their race, religion, or sexual orientation". He questioned "how would people react if women and black people were banned from an open day?". The Bristol charity Support Against Racist Incidents similarly criticised the practice, arguing that there "has to be a level playing field; that's the law".


2017 governance changes

On 28 July 2017, the
Chief Fire Officer Chief fire officer (CFO), formerly often just chief officer, is the highest rank in the fire and rescue services of the United Kingdom. There are currently 50 chief fire officers serving in the United Kingdom in charge of the local authority fire ...
, Kevin Pearson was suspended following the publication of a report from the Home Office on an investigation into how the service is run, citing that it was being run as an "old boys' club", with endemic bullying, and that Pearson had been "unchallenged and not held properly to account for too long". Deputy Chief Fire Officer Lorraine Houghton was also suspended. The service is governed by the Avon Fire Authority, which has a total of 25
councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...
s from the four councils within the region. Following the suspension of Pearson, the board met on 2 August 2017 to discuss what changes needed to be made and how the authority should be governed in the future, but no conclusion was reached. The authority released a statement afterwards announcing that it could not "fix itself" and that the police and crime commissioner, Sue Mountstevens is to be appointed to the board in September. Mountstevens has said following the release of the report that she was considering a takeover of the area's fire service. On 11 August 2017, it was announced that Mick Crennell had been appointed as the interim Chief Fire Officer on a six-month contract, whilst the investigation of Pearson is taking place. Crennell previously served as Deputy Chief Fire Officer of
Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service The Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service ( cy, Gwasanaeth Tân ac Achub Canolbarth a Gorllewin Cymru) is the fire and rescue service covering the Welsh principal areas of Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire, ...
. In April 2018, Crennell was appointed Chief Fire Officer. Following the 2017 report, AFRS commissioned a consultancy firm to conduct an independent review of the themes raised by staff. The review, which had a response rate of 70% from AFRS staff, found that staff were afraid for their mental health and that bullying was ingrained within the service. Staff across all areas of AFRS complained of a lack of feedback, high workloads and the tone of internal communications within the service. There were also complaints from women staff, who felt they had to work harder than their male counterparts; and on-call firefighters who felt inferior to their wholetime colleagues. In March 2019 AFRS published a response to the initial report and subsequent independent review. The report promised a zero-tolerance approach, retraining for middle management, and training for all employees in equality, diversity and inclusion.


High-risk sites

In December 2018,
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), formerly Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), has statutory responsibility for the inspection of the police forces of England and Wales, and since ...
found that Avon was not "doing enough to keep the public safe through regulation of fire safety", after it found that only 115 of 9,317 high-risk locations had up-to-date fire safety information that had been audited within the most recent 12-month period.


Stations and appliances

, AF&RS has 21 fire stations, employing 425 wholetime
firefighter A firefighter is a first responder and rescuer extensively trained in firefighting, primarily to extinguish hazardous fires that threaten life, property, and the environment as well as to rescue people and in some cases or jurisdictions also ...
s and 174 on-call firefighters. Its Emergency Control Room employs 44 control staff. AF&RS fire stations use 34 frontline fire engines, which includes four rescue pumps. It also operates a number of specialist appliances that are used for response, resilience, or
urban search and rescue Urban search and rescue (abbreviated as USAR or US&R) is a type of technical rescue operation that involves the location, extrication, and initial medical stabilization of victims trapped in an urban area, namely structural collapse due to natu ...
(USAR) purposes:


See also

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Fire service in the United Kingdom The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Emergency cover is provided by over fifty agencies. These are officially known as a ...
*
List of British firefighters killed in the line of duty This article is a list of British firefighters killed in the line of duty since 1900. As such, it only lists those firefightersThe term ''firefighter'' is used as it is not gender-specific. Most deaths will have originally been reported as the ge ...


References


External links

*
Avon Fire and Rescue Service
at
HMICFRS His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), formerly Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), has statutory responsibility for the inspection of the police forces of England and Wales, and since ...
{{Authority control Avon (county) Bath and North East Somerset Fire and rescue services of England North Somerset South Gloucestershire District Bristol