The Site

First of all I would like to apologise for the lateness of this newsletter, I have been very busy over the past couple of months with some new sites (see below) The usage of the FireNet site is still growing and in 11 months we have had 378410 pages read, this will give the site approximately 400,000 hits for the year 1998/1999 and with the numbers growing at the rate they are I expect this to be at 750,000 for the period 1999/2000. The site's disk size has also grown and once again I-Way (My ISP) has come to the rescue and increased my site by 100%.

Another aid to help navigate around the site has been added in the form of Gateway. This is simply a page that holds links to the most popular pages at FireNet, and will act as a good starting point for ALL Fire related information.

It is still the aim of the site to remain independent and act as a Training/Information resource center that is modeled on the subject area's and needs that YOU the user want to see. During the making of these pages we are also forging new links and friendships with other Fire Related Departments and Organisations throughout the World.

On the 8th September at FIRE 1998, four comprehensive health and safety guidance documents were unveiled by Henry McLeish, MP Minister for the Scottish Fire Service.

The four documents will have a significant impact upon the way in which health and safety is developed in the fire service within the United Kingdom. The general layout and a few extracts from the Guides have been included on the FireNet Pages under license from the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office

FireNet's Other Area's of Interest

The Aviation pages have gone from strength to strength since the last newsletter (Summer 1998) and we have changed the name from FireNet (Aviation) to The Aviation Fire Journal. This is due to the site now offering an on-line publication which I must say is an excellent piece of work.

This is the first ever "on-line" magazine dedicated to aircraft fire fighting and airport fire protection for the airport and Local Authority / Municipal fire fighter, and everyone else who can or could be involved with an aircraft accident. It will serve to be informative on a variety of topics dealing with, and related to, aircraft fire and rescue and aviation safety topics and issues. It is hoped to make this magazine both interesting and a source of training information on worldwide aviation fire protection.

The AFJ is a global publication and we want to make this accessible to all users throughout the World and to cover our costs, so a subscription price of £15 per year was established.

So if you want to stay informed and support the FireNet Project please sign up

Following my call for contributions in the last newsletter (Summer 1998) I was contacted by a fellow officer who said that he would be prepared to edit a Site on Marine Fire Safety. The site is aimed at general maritime fire safety issues and in particular the role of UK Local Authority Fire Brigades in dealing with fires on ships at sea. Although Brigades in the UK have been undertaking this task for some time it was very much a Local understanding with some guidance from the Home Office and representative bodies. With the Marine site it was hoped to bring Brigades and Organisations together to improve communications, identify standards, and most importantly exchange information and then maybe achieve some 'standardisation'.

I am pleased to say that CACFOA have arranged the inaugural meeting of a dedicated team of 'ship firefighting practitioners' that will take place in Lincolnshire on June 30th 1999.This meeting will hopefully be the catalyst for promoting all the key initiatives already mentioned.

I was contacted by a fellow officer to ask if I would host a site on Urban Search & Rescue, I thought that this was more suited to Earthquakes and Volcanoes (How wrong I was). In fact as operational fire fighters anywhere in the World we can encounter the requirements for USAR.

The definition:
"An Expert based System for Mobilising, Managing and Training the Resources necessary to Safely, Expeditiously Locate and then Remove trapped victims from partially or totally Collapsed Structures or Confined Environments and Develop Technical Rescue Skills & Management Techniques to Ensure the Potential Consequences and Effects of Disasters are Comprehensively Prepared for and dealt with in a highly efficient & effective manner."

This is being developed further into a Distance learning site (provided by The International Emergency Technical Rescue Institute.) so that users can enhance their knowledge and skills with the help of the On-Line "Expert Technical Advisory Board"

Within the last 24 hours we have agreed to host another UK Organisation in the form of The United Kingdom Fire Service Search and Rescue Team (UKFSSART). The site is still being put together as I type this out and it will grow over the coming weeks with technical references, News and much more information with regard to this discipline. Below is a short paragraph on the reason behind the formation and structure of UKFSSART.

Following the UK response to assist the Kurdish population in northern Iraq as a consequence of the Gulf War the then Minister for Overseas Development, the Right Hon Lynda Chalker, announced a new initiative designed to improve the effectiveness of any future British Relief effort. This was to be achieved by introducing additional measures to provide a rapid assessment of the requirement together with co-ordination of the British Government relief effort and the deployment of skilled teams and A steering group of Chief Officers was set up, under the chair of one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Fire Services, with the objectives of developing a co-ordinated British Fire Service response to overseas disasters.

Item 13 of Dear Chief Officer letter 9/1992 sets out the full arrangements for the UKSAR Team.

To provide an appropriate response it will be necessary to ensure the availability of two teams, each of 32 personnel available at any one time. Team members will require to be fully trained and equipped, capable of being self sufficient for up to 14 days.
The first team will be required to respond to a call for assistance within 12 hours with the second team available on standby, ready to respond as required for reinforcement, relief or as a further deployment.

I was asked again by a fellow UK Fire Officer if I could assist through the pages of FireNet to bring together Brigades working on Fire Behaviour Training to exchange information and techniques on this subject. Below are a few lines that he has kindly put together on the subject.

CACFOA District 6 ( South West )….’Working together’………Almost three years ago, after carrying out research resulting mainly from the Channel 4 TV’Equinox’ programme on ‘Flashover’s’ (which was inspired by fellow Fire Officer John Taylor), Cornwall, Devon and Dorset Fire Brigades sent a team of twelve instructors to Sando Fire College in Sweden to learn the ‘skills’ of becoming ‘flashover’ instructor’s using the ‘container’ system and chipboard carbonaceous fires.

From this visit their developed a group of Fire Brigade instructors in the South West who have ultimately become skilled in this very essential training need of ‘ Fire Behaviour Training’. Regular meetings have ensured that at least locally, standards, terminology and training practices have been exchanged and enhanced.
Some people have returned to Sweden for further training and Swedish instructors from Raddningsverket, the Swedish Rescue Services Agency, have been regular visitors to the South West. These visits have allowed further exchanges of information, improvement of skills and enhanced competency.

Many friends have been made both here and abroad, but the main development has been the ‘working together’ approach and regular sharing of information.
All eight Brigades in CACFOA District 6, which comprises of:-
Cornwall; Devon; Dorset; Wiltshire; Somerset; Avon; Gloucestershire and Hereford and Worcestershire have or are actively involved with the FBT ‘user group’.The Fire Service College at Morton in Marsh also forms an integral part of the group.

Most recently Dorset Fire and Rescue hosted two day’s when several instructors from five Brigades and the Fire Service College took the opportunity to carry out some research ‘test burns’ and further expand knowledge and re assess previous risk assessments. Hopefully some of the results of this work will be published on the FIRENET site.

Also recently, CACFOA District 5 set up a similar ‘user group’ and representatives from each of the Districts attend the other’s meetings to further expand the principals of ‘working together’. Although not all Brigades in these Districts are currently involved in FBT, most seek out advice and guidance from the group so they can resource their own future needs with limited time wasting, reduced research costs etc. Some Brigades use the carbonaceous system , others have chosen LPG…both have there place and in fact the ideal training package would be a balanced approach from both systems. Both Cornwall and Devon Fire Brigades are looking at exactly that, and small , relatively cheap LPG units reinforce the principals taught inside the carbonaceous units.

At present the future is still slightly unclear nationally. A National User Group has been identified and as representatives from CACFOA District 6 advocate, this national group hopefully will be looking at all aspects of FBT i.e. fire development..flashover / backdraught ; tactical ventilation and tactical firefighting. Most of us have experienced ‘flashover’ and perhaps even the devastation of ‘backdraught’ and walked away, some of our colleagues have not been so fortunate. Hopefully this form of training and communication will reduce the probability of further injuries. The training now being provided in this discipline is being well received, our Firefighters want and deserve more of this so they can improve there skills..the principal of sharing information and working together can and does work. Watch this space

A Bulletin Board System (BBS) was added to the index of FireNet in November 1998, This has proved to be a very well frequented page. Users are leaving their messages and getting the answers on this dynamic page, from other users who are facing the same queries or who have the answer and are willing to share their knowledge and experience with the rest of the FireNet community.

The Search pages have now been "Refurbished" to give the user more flexibility over the area's that are needed to be searched, these were added following a request that the FireNet site was getting to big to quickly navigate through. Hopefully the Search Pages rectify that problem.To further enhance the search pages it is hoped to highlight the required word to reduce "information overload"

These are updated from my list as and when Fire Related News items come on line, however what is now included is a facility that looks at on line news items and updates every 5 minutes. This enables you the user to be kept informed of all news items with key words in the title (unfortunately some titles are not in the same context, but not many). The pages that have the News Wire added are FireNet Main News Page, Marine News and USAR News

Colin Simpson
FireNet Webmaster