Fire service hit hard by Omicron

AS many as a third of fire appliances have been out of action in parts of the North East in recent weeks as the service deals with staff shortages due to the spread of the Covid variant Omicron, a union has said.

In Cleveland there should be 18 fire engines available for use at any one time, but at the moment there are generally levels of only 12 to 15 due to Covid and other staffing issues, it says.

In the Tyne and Wear area, 4% of fire and rescue service staff are off on sick leave.

It has also recently been reported that firefighter crew levels across Teesside and County Durham were being “impacted” by Covid, according to a radio interview given by Fire Brigades Union regional secretary for the North East Brian Harris.

Commenting further today, Mr Harris said: “Covid is hitting the fire and rescue service hard, with fire engines left out of use in their stations – but this is entirely avoidable. A fire and rescue service with sufficient levels of staffing and decent levels of resilience would be able to continue past these challenges.

“But across the country we’ve had one in every five firefighters cut since 2010 as financial constraints have hit, so we aren’t in that position. It’s entirely unclear how the Government thinks it is acceptable to have a fire and rescue service with such a low level of resilience.”

A Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said: “Like any large organisation, we have had coronavirus-related absences to deal with, however, we have remained resilient throughout.

“We have strict control measures in place to mitigate the transmission of the virus.

“We want to reassure residents that we have contingencies in place that will ensure those in need will always receive an emergency response when they need it. The level of absences relating to coronavirus remain at around 4% of the workforce, which is a manageable level.”