Fire service warned over building risks

High rise residential buildings are among those about which Avon Fire and Rescue Service is missing important fire risk information, inspectors have warned.

Fire services collect site-specific risk information so firefighters are aware of the hazards, rendezvous points, and other information they will need if a fire breaks out.

But not all places of risk needing site-specific information have apparently been identified by Avon Fire and Rescue Service and not all staff are trained in carrying out risk information visits.

The warning came from Wendy Williams CBE, of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, in a letter to the fire service. She carried out an inspection of the service in May and August this year.

She added that the risk information visits at high-rise buildings with highly flammable cladding were being carried out by on-call firefighters with no training and no quality assurance processes in place. She said this was “worrying.”

Meanwhile, some high-risk buildings in the area - including some high-rise residential buildings - had no risk information recorded, she warned.

Though she recognised Avon Fire and Rescue had identified another 200 premises requiring risk information, she believed there were more to be identified.

Ms Williams also warned: “Some operational staff told us it was more of a risk to use the information recorded during their response. They also said they didn’t find it useful, and that they didn’t use it as a result.”

Steve Smith, a councillor on Bristol City Council, told a meeting of Avon Fire Authority’s policy and resources committee: “I actually watched an exercise on a station fairly recently where the commander of the incident had 10 pages of printed off stuff and couldn’t actually find the one bit of information wanted to manage that incident.”

But Chief Fire Officer Simon Shilton told the meeting: “It’s not that we were not doing any work in the risk information environment. We did and we do have a team on capturing that risk information.”

But he said the service had been focussed on capturing a “gold package” of risk information, while the inspectors were looking for the necessary risk information collected “here and now.” The service has an action plan in place to address the inspector’s concerns.

Responding to Mr Smith’s concerns, Mr Shilton said that the risk information followed a standard format nationally-recognised as best practice.

He added: “Within the plan itself there is a period for training of operational staff and also for them to contribute towards that risk information gathering as well.”

Ms Williams also warned of a glitch with the fire service’s mobilisation software that causes it to “crash during emergency 999 calls” as a concern.

Mr Shilton insisted it had “mainly been resolved.”