Councillors call for improved fire service cover as 'a matter of extreme urgency'as Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) challenged
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Highland Council's city committee has heard worries over fire service availability.
At today’s meeting of Highland Council's Inverness committee, Aird and Loch Ness members Chris Ballance and David Fraser both challenged Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) officers over engine availability.
Councillor Ballance said he had seen figures showing periods of time where there was no fire cover in the ward.
“This is a matter of extreme urgency,” he said. “It’s vital that the fire service in the middle of the A82 has permanent availability.”
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An SFRS report to the committee put fire cover at 98 per cent in Drumnadrochit and 89 per cent in Fort Augustus.
However, Cllr Ballance challenged these figures. He claimed they refer to evening and night time availability, but demand is far higher – and cover therefore lower – during the day.
SFRS station commander Robbie MacDougall did not directly address this matter at today’s meeting, but the SFRS later clarified that the figures do reflect both daytime and night-time cover.
On November 16, several members of the council’s community and place committee had similar concerns.
Thurso councillor Matthew Reiss claimed that cover in Caithness and Sutherland often dips to 50 per cent, though the Highland senior officer challenged this summary.
One key issue affecting availability is a requirement for engines to be staffed by four fire fighters to attend call-outs.
SFRS say this is necessary for health and safety. However, in 2018, SFRS brought new, rapid response units (RRUs) to the council chambers. They told councillors these could be staffed by just three people, which could vastly improve cover in short-staffed rural areas.
It later emerged that these RRUs are operating in some areas, but always with four personnel.
Challenged by Inverness councillor Duncan Macpherson, Mr MacDougall said local crews should not be put under pressure to attend emergencies without safe numbers.
Cllr Macpherson also raised concerns about older appliances serving rural stations, and Mr MacDougall responded: “I’m lucky in Inverness that we always get good, first class fire appliances.”
He added that rural areas don’t have the same level of demand.
Cllr Fraser offered thanks to the fire service for their work across all of Highland. However, he said rural cover could be further affected by a training glitch he recently discovered at Fort Augustus.
This relates to incident commander training. He said two of the station’s most experienced staff have undertaken extensive training to maintain their incident commander tickets. These were due for renewal in January 2024.
They have since been informed they must repeat the training in January 2023. Cllr Fraser says the volunteer staff can’t meet that requirement, endangering local cover.
The SFRS said the revised training requirement came from central office in Cambuslang, and local teams are pressing for a review.
Cllr Fraser called for an urgent resolution, and highlighted the “wonderful work and commitment” of the team.
Cllr Ballance also pressed the matter, stating: “The risk is that we lose highly trained and hugely experienced incident commanders to the service.”
SFRS area commander Michael Humphreys strenuously denied members’ claims about reduced rural cover.
In a statement after the meeting, he said: “We always maintain fire cover. At no point is there no cover for any area in Scotland. The nearest available appliance is mobilised to an incident to ensure every emergency is attended. This can involve the strategic movement of appliances and individual personnel from other stations within the area if required.
“Across Highland, there are 11 full-time on-call support officers who review crewing daily and give on call cover during daytime, evenings and weekends. Each individual officer is responsible for a cluster of fire stations within their own area and can provide fire cover for any station which, for a variety of reasons may temporarily have an insufficient crewing level.”
