Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service

Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service
Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service area
Coverage
Area	Tyne and Wear
Size	540 sq. kilometres
Population	1.08 million
Operations
Formed	1974
HQ	Barmston Mere, Washington
Stations	17
Co-responder	{{{CR}}}
Chief Fire Officer	Iain Bathgate
Website	Tyne and Wear FRS
Fire authority	Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Authority.
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View of a Tyne and Wear Volvo Fire Appliance.

Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, formerly Tyne and Wear Metropolitan Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service covering the area of Tyne and Wear, England, providing emergency fire cover to a population of 1.08 million people and a geographical area of 540 square kilometres. Its Chief Fire Officer is Iain Bathgate, and its motto is 'Creating the safest community'.^[1]

History

Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service was formed in 1974, however it had been a requirement, since the passing of the Fire Brigades Act 1938 for local authorities to provide fire cover.^[2] Previously fire cover was provided by a number of smaller services^[3] In 2004 the name of the fire and rescue service was changed from Tyne and Wear Metropolitan Fire Brigade to Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, to reflect changes in local authority structure.^[4] The FRS works closely with Northumbria Police in order to promote community issues.

Overview

The Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service serves over one million people in Sunderland, Newcastle and Tyneside.^[5] The service responded to 24,025 incidents in the period 2004 to 2005, which consisted of 13,060 fires, 8495 false alarms and 2470 special service calls. Of its 15 wholetime, one part-wholetime/part-retained, and one retained fire stations, the FRS operates 48 frontline fire appliances consisting of:

• 31 pumping appliances
• 2 aerial ladder platforms
• 1 turntable ladder
• 1 emergency tender
• 1 Operational support unit
• 1 special rescue tender
• 1 command support unit
• 1 Boat transporter
• 1 fire boat
• 1 incident response unit
• 1 DIM unit
• 6 prime movers
• 5 Urban search & rescue pods
• 2 High Volume Pump Unit Pods
• 1 dis-robe pod
• 1 re-robe pod

Fire stations

There are currently seventeen fire stations in operation with the Service. From 1 July 2009, the names of the fire stations were changed, 'to provide consistency throughout the Service and to support the introduction of national callsigns'. The table below shows the former and current names for all seventeen stations^[6]:

Dennis/Volvo fire appliances

Originally TWFRS Dennis Specialist Vehicles, efficient for fire service use. Over time the service depended less on Dennis appliances and more on Volvo. In recent years it has begun to use more Dennis appliances and it is currently a variation of Volvo and Dennis appliances. Now the brigade a going back to volvo , with 17 new pumps & and new aerial ladder platform on order. The new aerial ladder platform is likely to replace the turntable ladder at foxtrot , and 3 new operational support units are coming to replace the current operational support unit at gateshead , the emergency tender at colby court and the special rescue tender at hebburn.

A Front and side view of another Tyne and Wear Volvo Fire Appliance.

Tyne and Wear's Operational Support Unit

Community fire stations

The intention of community fire stations is to use them as meeting places to discuss fire related issues, as well as offer facilities for local citizens to receive fire safety information if should they require it. Another aim of the community fire stations was to "Provide the community with the highest standards of fire safety and firefighting services available" A lot of the community fire stations now have YFA (Young Firefighters Association) which allow children to experience what it would be like to be a firefighter and what work and effort is involved.^[8]

During the 1980s and early 90's - the brigade used the "welephant" character to publicise it’s fire safety scheme amongst schoolchildren. As well as visiting schools, the character (usually an officer dressed up inside the giant red elephant costume) visited supermarkets and towns across the brigade’s patch highlighting the message during the school holidays.

Changes to the fire service

Over the next few years the service will be buying new fire appliances and building several new fire stations. There are currently plans to replace one community fire station in Tynemouth and the future of Fulwell is currently being investigated (i.e. refurbishment, re-location or rebuilding on same site).^{[citation needed]} The service has currently received another four New Dimension Prime Movers, these four new prime movers are based at Washington (for re-robe module) , swalwell (for high volume pump unit pods)& north moor (for dis-robe pod), along with the existing three based at Sunderland Central for urban search and rescue. The emergency tender based at Sunderland Central Fire Station ended its service in March 2007. 2 new high volume pump unit pods have been acquired by the FRS, they are based at Swalwell fire station.

References

See also

• Fire service in the United Kingdom
• Fire apparatus
• Fire station
• FiReControl

External links

• Official Site of Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service
• Official Site of the FIRE KILLS: YOU CAN PREVENT IT! Campaign
• Fire Gateway Website, Fire Safety Information and Fire Service locater

Video clips

• Tyne & Wear YouTube channel

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