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TO COINCIDE with the Fire & Rescue show in Liverpool later in the month, this edition looks at the modern threats facing the international fire and rescue community. We hear from fire professionals from the UK and America, to Greece and Australia, about the new risks they now face and the strategic and operational challenges that arise in terms of response, resources, coordination and multi-agency liaison.
Recent years have seen fire services reshape in response to a host of growing national threats – from terrorism and wide-area flooding, to wildfires and severe storms. As articles this month show, the service must continue to evolve and adapt over the next few decades and beyond as they learn the lessons from major emergencies that can clearly still drain resources and test personnel and equipment to the limit.
Greece, for example, is still coming to terms with the wildfire disaster which last year caused 78 deaths and widespread devastation. A range of shortcomings have been identified in its systems for dealing with forest fires, both in terms of aerial and ground firefighting and forest fuel management. With some 100 wildfires reported to be burning this July, the Greek Government is currently under pressure to ensure improvements are made urgently.
Elsewhere in this edition we hear about the National Incident Response Framework, issued earlier this year to overcome the problems with disaster response in America highlighted during Hurricane Katrina. Also discussed is the UK fire service’s role in responding to inland flood and water rescue. Following the recent publication of the Pitt Review into the summer floods last year, there is much debate on whether the service should be the lead agency for flood response and have a statutory duty for flood rescue.
Different countries perhaps, but there is clearly a great deal of common ground in the challenges faced by the worldwide fire and rescue community. Indeed, it has never been more important for the sector to remain flexible, be it in the pooling of response resources, adapting to new equipment that becomes available, sharing information with other agencies and sectors, and enhancing the skills and training of personnel. The service must be as prepared as it can in these uncertain times.
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