People were frightened..our job was to reassure them

From early March it became apparent Covid-19 would become a huge problem. We knew we had to play our part and help stop the spread. We treated this as an emergency incident early on and that approach seems to have minimised the impact on our business

A phrase going round was: “We’ve no experience of this so we better pool ideas: what are the suggestions, what’s the best way forward, what can we learn from elsewhere?”

We’d never dealt with anything like this – it was combining all our skills, knowledge, expertise and tenacity to ensure we responded effectively.

I was aware that people across our organisation and within our communities were frightened and it was part of our job to reassure them that there was no effect on our service and our staff would be safe.

It took a couple of months before the public realised: “This is really serious.” A turning point was the introduction of face masks. All of a sudden that made things very real. We had to lock doors to fire stations – usually very open places – and tell people: “You can’t come in.”

Infection prevention became a focus and we equipped our people and buildings to keep everyone safe and our frontline services available.

It has been incredibly challenging. As well as protective equipment, crews now also wear surgical gloves and specialist face masks, to sanitise and decontaminate.

As well as our core duties we’ve offered assistance to others.

We were involved in risk-assessing temporary field hospitals involving high-risk patients and oxygen.

We have 24 volunteers driving for the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust.

Firefighters have been trained to give vaccines. We’ve got service staff volunteering to collect and return people to and from vaccination centres, mainly over-70s.

When the first lockdown began, we were concerned fire risks would rise with people confined to home.

But attendance at incidents including road accidents and nondomestic fires reduced. There were fewer drink-related accidents too.

Without doubt, there is light at the end of the tunnel. It’s up to us all to play our part to secure a future where we can begin to live with coronavirus on a more permanent basis.

TACKLING A CRISIS Chris Davies explains how his service coped OUR emergency service workers have put their lives on the line to save others during the crisis. Chris Davies is one. The Chief Fire Officer at Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service presides over 58 fire stations and 1,300 staff. Here Chris, 55, explains how his teams have adapted to stay safe and carry on serving their communities.