Fire and Emergency Services

Sligo Fire Authority had another busy year in 2010 with an increased emphasis being placed on Fire Safety awareness, particularly in the home where most fire fatalities still occur.

International research has indicated that this is best achieved through youth focused awareness of fire safety issues. To achieve this goal, we have visited every National School in the County targeting third class students and delivering what is known as the “National Schools Programme”. This youth friendly pack and information programme has proved a highly popular initiative and principals, teachers and schools were very accommodating and we look forward to continuing to develop community fire safety awareness.

  
- Open Day, Ballymote National School 

The Health and Safety Authority with Junior Achievement once again piloted the “Keep Safe Event” in which we participated and hosted in our Brigade Head Quarters. The event aimed at highlighting safety for our youth in a variety of situations was contributed to by representatives from 14 key interest groups and provided over one hundred visitors with safety demonstrations and education.

 
- Launch of Fire Safety Week 

During 2010, the Fire Service accommodated approximately 2,500 visitors in groups to fire stations. Each group was provided with a tour of the facilities, information was given on our equipment and work and most importantly we promoted fire safety. 

The order for the purchase two new “Fire Engines” was placed with the successful tender “Sidhean Teo” (based in Galway), and the appliances shall be delivered to Sligo and Enniscrone Brigades later in 2011 at a cost in excess of half a million euro. These appliances shall see the final upgrading of our “Class B” type Fire Engines. The next appliance for which we shall seek funding shall be the replacement of our “Water Tender”, used to ferry large volumes of portable water to incidents where a fire fighting water supply may not be sufficient.

The new Fire Station in Ballymote, designed by our Sligo Borough Council architects shall be opened early in 2011. This stylish and modern building shall not only enhance the streetscape of this town but the Brigade shall once again have a station from which to proudly serve the needs of this modern community.

 
- Contract Signing - Ballymote Fire Station 

Sligo Fire Station Headquarters has also received funding for some upgrading works to provide an improved and safe work environment including extending our vehicle maintenance area, upgrading the fire-fighter facilities and necessary upgrades to make the premises more community accessible.

The operational side of the service has again had a busy year, particularly during the spring when, once again, large forest fires caused hundreds of acres of forestry to be destroyed. The financial loss was upsetting but the damage to the environment and the danger posed to those living adjacent to these fires can not be understated. These incidents have been investigated by the Gardai.

The Brigades throughout the County have experienced a busy year in 2010 with a total of 897 incidents attended. These were distributed as follows; Sligo 481, Ballymote 181, Tubbercurry 142 and Enniscrone 93. 

The “Incident Command System” has been implemented to improve safety at incidents and provide an efficient manner of managing incidents. The national Directorate for Fire and Emergency Planning have provided Standard Operating Guidance for training of staff in the dealing with incidents. The provision of emergency first responder training, defibrillator training, hazardous chemical training and rescue and fire fighting techniques ensure that we can respond to incidents in accordance with the Fire Services Acts of 1981 and 2003.

The Building Control Act continues to provide regulation ensuring a safer built environment through certification, inspection and when necessary enforcement. There has been a reduction in the number of Fire Safety Certificates being applied for but this reduction has been more than absorbed by the increased work associated with licensing, community fire safety and the National Schools Programme.

The Fire Service provides information and training on fire safety management and fire fighting to all sectors and groups in the community. This includes hundreds of adults being formally trained in the use of fire extinguishers and the ongoing community safety programme using the mobile demonstration unit.

People must remain vigilant in the home and on the roads as this is where most life threatening incidents occur each year.

Major Emergency Management

The “Framework for Major Emergency Management” continues to provide the guidance for the implementation of a co-ordinated response by the “lead agencies” to any major incident or event.

The following is a summary of Major Emergency activity in 2010:

• PRA and Interagency Major Emergency appraisal completed for 2009 and submitted to DoEHLG.
• Exercise Eagle 18th May 2010,
• Exercise Ambulance Alert 15th July 2010,
• Exercise Wetlands 24th Nov 2010,
• Interagency On Site Coordination courses held October 20th and November 17th 2010,
• Interagency Information Management courses held 27th and 28th May 2010,
• Regional Risk update.
• Regional Major Emergency Plan update.
• Regional Directory of Contacts update
• Upgrading of Local Coordination Centre
• 5 meetings of major emergency interagency Regional Working Group,
• 7 meetings of major emergency interagency Regional Sub-Working Group,
• Regional Steering Group meetings.
• Updating of Regional Major Emergency Extranet, hosted by Donegal County Council, 
• Vector Training demonstration,
• ESB site visit at Cathaleen Falls, Ballyshannon for developing an ‘Off-Site’ plan,
• Brian Kenny, Senior Engineer, Leitrim County Council gave a presentation 22 April 2010 on Leitrim’s flooding experience.
• Text and Pager Mobilisation updates.

Donegal Fire Authority provided the Regional Training in 2010 with a Major Emergency Exercise at Donegal Airport. The exercise provided a valuable experience to the participants in managing such incidents. The cooperation between the Gardai, HSE and Fire Service continues to develop and has proved very worthwhile in improving the service provided to the community. This is further supplemented by voluntary groups such as Civil defence, R.N.L.I., and Mountain Rescue to mention but a few.

Exercise Wetlands

The North West Region for Major Emergency Management hosted Exercise Wetlands on 24th November 2010 in the Clarion Hotel, Sligo. Exercise Wetlands was one of three major emergency exercises held by the North West Region in 2010, Exercise Eagle and Exercise Ambulance Alert being the other two.

Exercise Wetlands was a “Tabletop” exercise, i.e., one that simulated a major emergency in the confines of a prepared room. The simulation involved a severe weather event including major flooding, which resulted in a major emergency declaration. This exercise was designed to focus on the systems and protocols that are in place and are implemented in the event of a major emergency as set out in the Framework for Major Emergency Management in Ireland (2006). The framework document and its systems and protocols were adopted throughout the Republic of Ireland on 30th September, 2008. Under the Framework there is a requirement for a co-ordinated major emergency response from the three Principal Response Agencies (PRAs). These three PRAs are the Health Service Executive, An Garda Síochána and the Local Authorities.

For further information on the framework suite of documents log on to: www.mem.ie

The exercise aim was to use a simulated incident to audit the effectiveness of the interagency response to a major emergency caused by a flood event in Sligo. 

 
- Planning Exercise Team 

130 participants representing 36 different organisations participated at the exercise.

Representatives from the National Major Emergency Steering & Working Groups, all PRA’s within the North West Region and Northern Ireland emergency services representatives were among the 130 participants. The planning exercise team were delighted that such a large and varied audience participated in the exercise. Each of the 13 tables had both a mixture of PRA and non-PRA participants.

The evaluation process of the exercise consisted of the following:

• Exercise observations.
• Hot debrief.
• Evaluation sheets and feedback.
• Cold debrief by different organisations.
• Validity and analysis by the Exercise Planning Committee.
• Exercise Report. The exercise report is available on Sligo Local Authority and Sligo Borough Council websites.

The ‘hot debrief’ session held immediately after the exercise was a process in which exercise participants were led through purposive discussion of that experience as well as an opportunity for participants to connect the dots from the old knowledge and skills they have and to provide participants opportunities to apply new knowledge and skills.

Each of the nine agencies on the Exercise Wetlands planning committee held their individual ‘cold’ debrief and this feedback was brought back to the exercise planning committee.

The reviews and exercise reports are issue orientated and has a ‘win-win’ learning outcome because if the training exercise has not gone well, the underlying errors are determined. If the exercise has gone well then the opportunity to learn from the ‘perfect example’ is provided. The exercise planning committee subsequently held three meetings post exercise and concluded that the exercise had been a positive learning experience for the participants. Participants in particular felt that the scenarios were realistic for the extreme weather conditions simulated in the exercise, that they were now more comfortable with their role in emergency management, that the 13 individual teams coped well with the problems that they were presented with, that the major emergency Framework Information was employed well and that the exercise facilitators were knowledgeable about the material, kept the exercise on target and instructions were relevant and ‘user friendly’.

Further positive feedback was that key staff were reacquainted with the Framework for emergency management and the Principal Response Agency (PRA) roles during Major Emergency response by delivering short presentations before the exercise. Co-ordination of managing an emergency response was promoted within this exercise, with key personnel and groups identified. Crisis recognition/awareness and interagency crisis decision making were also promoted during the exercise in addition to interagency teamwork and understanding.

An inter-agency flood plan is currently being produced for the North-West Region Major Emergency working group - to complement and bring together existing PRA flood plans - and this interagency flood plan is incorporating many of the lessons learned from Exercise Wetlands. 

Health and Safety in the Fire Service

The health and safety of employees and the public we serve is to the forefront of the service we provide. There is a very strict training and disciplinary regime in the Fire Brigade as is necessitated by the sometimes difficult and dangerous environment in which Fire-fighters work. The responsibility now placed upon the “Incident Commander” in dealing with even minor events is continually increasing and training highlights the need for continual improvement. Every member of staff is now obliged to participate in training and act in the appropriate manner to avoid endangering others or themselves.