Fire safety event shows local businesses the importance of easy access for emergency crews

Local organisations and businesses have taken part in an event highlighting the importance of access for fire crews at buildings.

The Protection Team at Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service welcomed representatives from organisations across the county to Mereway Fire Station on Tuesday (July 7), where they were shown live drills demonstrating the obstacles that fire crews can face relating to emergency access, and how this impacts their response.

The first demonstration, which took place in the station drill yard, showed crews arriving and responding without any access issues. The second drill showed what happened if they had to park 35 metres further away, and with a car blocking the route. This added an extra five minutes onto the time due to the distance crews had to cover setting up equipment.

Representatives from Northampton General Hospital, North Northamptonshire Council, Brackmills BID, Highways and more saw how the additional five minutes can be the difference between the fire being at an early stage and easily extinguished or fully engulfing the building and placing lives in danger.

They also saw examples of poor practice in building design and water hydrant placements, and how appropriately placing them within building design can effectively help emergency response times.

Scott Richards, Head of Protection at Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service, (pictured above) said: “It has been valuable to invite our public sector and commercial partners to this safety event. Engaging with partners and businesses is so important because it allows us to help them develop their own fire safety standards.

“Our mission is to make sure that we keep people safe in the buildings they work in, and we are here to help businesses not just comply with fire safety regulations, but make sure they have the best possible facilities in place to keep people safe.”

Mark Ainge is the fire safety advisor for Northampton General Hospital, which recently signed an agreement with the Fire Service to further improve its partnership working.

Mark said: “Seeing the demonstration showed the challenges that firefighters face when they arrive at a scene.

“The time delay that we saw as a result is probably not something that people would necessarily understand, but it certainly helped everyone who attended to understand what the Fire Service needs and what we can all do to help them get around those challenges.

“Attending this safety event was really interesting, and as part of expanding our relationship with the Fire Service I hope we can expand this opportunity to more of the staff who work in our buildings team.”

And Sara Homer, Chief Executive Officer of Brackmills BID, added: “I thought the event was brilliant. We have 187 businesses and 18,000 employees within the Business Improvement District, and this information will be fed back to our health and safety forums and hopefully have a positive impact across those organisations.”