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WARWICKSHIRE Fire and Rescue Authority is ‘carefully considering’ an improvement notice served on it by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in relation to the warehouse fire at Atherstone on Stour last November, in which four firefighters died (see FP&FEJ December 2007 p.3).
The improvement notice points to contraventions of regulations 3, 5 and 10 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (as amended). In particular, it says that the fire authority has ‘not made appropriate arrangements for the implementation, monitoring and review of the preventive and protective measures arising from [its] risk assessments in that the operational premises risk information available to firefighters, specifically including special circumstances likely to pose an enhanced level of risk by virtue of premises design, construction, condition or use, etc, is insufficient to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of firefighters.’
The notice calls on the authority to remedy the contraventions by mid-May 2008. A spokesperson for Warwickshire Fire Authority told the journal that the notice would be ‘carefully considered’.
The Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFOA) president Steve McGuirk said: ‘CFOA is considering the action taken by HSE and the wider implications of the notice for UK fire and rescue services. We will work closely with Warwickshire to assist them to scrutinise the issues outlined in the notice.’ He added: ‘The welfare of firefighters is paramount in our planning and operations, and we will ensure we capture the lessons that emerge from this notice and that those issues are reflected in future activities’.
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