Agenda item

 To consider item 10

The Chairman advised Members that this summer, the Service faced a significant number of pressures due to the wildfires and field fires that were experienced. He had asked officers to prepare a report outlining the lessons learned from those summer pressures and how it impacted the Service.

The Acting Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised Members that on the 19 July 2022 the Service faced the busiest and most challenging periods of operational demand it had ever faced. Following an extreme period of hot dry weather, temperatures on that day reached a record high of 40.3°C. A Major incident (defined as an event or situation with a range of serious consequences which requires special arrangements to be implemented by one or more emergency responder) were declared in 15 fire and rescue services across the country, including Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service and neighbouring services in Bedfordshire, London and Hertfordshire, all as a result of the devastating outbreak of fires. During this period in July, the Service was also dealing with three other significant fires and two serious road traffic collisions (RTC’s). Three weeks later there were similar challenges. On the morning of 8 August, Thames Valley Fire Control Service (TVFCS) had received 65 calls, the majority of which were to ‘fires in the open’ and by 2pm they were receiving approximately 1 call per minute.

The Acting Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised Members that this report was an interim one. As was customary, following the response to any notable incident or event, the Service carried out a range of debriefing processes, all intended to highlight good practice and areas for improvement. Officers were mid-way through the debriefing process,  and whilst the Service wouldn’t normally start to introduce any ‘learnings’ until after the debriefing process had concluded, officers had taken the decision to introduce some early initial changes. Cool boxes to keep the bottled water cold, had been issued along with electrolyte tablets to restore levels after any periods of exertion. The roll out of personal issue face masks providing a higher level of respiratory protection had been accelerated. Other areas that had been identified at these early stages of the debriefing process which would be followed up in due course were, Preparedness and Resilience; Response; Equipment; Procedures; Welfare, Specialist Support; Comms, Health and Safety; Prevention – landowners, standing and harvested crop and Local, Regional and National levels of involvement for some of the above.

The Chairman on behalf of Members thanked all colleagues across the Service for their outstanding work throughout the summer. It was a very challenging time; the report outlined just how challenging and how well the Service responded.

A Member asked that climate change was leading to extreme weather conditions, both drought and flooding and everything in between. What was the Service doing to broaden this review, particularly with other authorities.

The Acting Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that the Service was actively engaged with partner agencies, and other fire and rescue services. There had already been a meeting with other key partners both emergency response and local authorities, across the whole Thames Valley, looking at how to plan and prepare for winter pressures and that would run in tandem to the work being undertaken around those particular challenges faced during the extreme heat.

The Vice Chairman advised Members that with his responsibilities around the climate emergency, he had already had discussions with the Director of Finance and Assets and other officers around how the Service could incorporate the findings from this report into recommendations as the Service progressed through the year. While this was an exceptional summer, this was the norm in parts of southern Europe.  Could the Service look at how these countries react on an annual basis to these eventualities. Also, out of the findings of this report, could officers advise third parties i.e., farmers, in the way in which they plant crops, add in breaks etc. with more work given to prevention.

The Acting Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised Members that the Chief Fire Officer had already made contact with other fire and rescue services who were starting to specialise in this work, and officers were looking at bringing them into the service to see what could be learnt from them, not just in terms of equipment, but also in terms of deployment and their response models. During that summer, the Prevention Team had engaged with a number of farmers and land owners around how they stored their crops and officers would continue to explore and engage with them.

A Member asked whether it would be possible to include some analysis on what caused these major incidents, clearly the drought was the key factor, but what actually triggered the incident. The number of events that happened within Buckinghamshire was relatively low to analyse, so perhaps looking nationally and then how this was fed into the prevention programme.

The Acting Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that this would be included in the final report.

RESOLVED –

1.      That the pressure experienced by Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service during the prolonged hot weather through this summer, as outlined in this report, be noted.

2.      That the Authority receive a further report once all the debriefing and review processes have been concluded.