Highlands pose ‘severely unique challenges’ for Inverness fire station
Firefighters in Inverness face a ‘unique’ set of challenges day-by-day due to the vast rural areas they cover in the Highlands.
Those based at Inverness fire station can sometimes travel up to 45 minutes to attend to an emergency incident as they are the only full-time station based in the Highlands with all the appropriate equipment.
There are retained firefighting crews across the region, with people aiming to keep their communities safe.
Watch commander for the SFRS, James Monoghan said: “In the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) we have a multitude of challenges that we face everyday regarding climate challenges, water rescue and road traffic issues.
“However, these challenges can be severely unique in the Highlands due to the vast area we have to cover. We have only got one full-time station which firefighters are fully committed to and can travel some distances to attend to a multitude of incidents.
“Sometimes we need multiple appliances to attend a remote location. It can sometimes lead to appliances travelling for up to 45 minutes to ensure that we’ve got the appliances there and we get there as quickly as we can.”
However, the SFRS work tirelessly behind the scenes in the control rooms to help prevent dangerous accidents happening in the first place.
Elaine Taylor, who is the community safety advocate has been working for the SFRS for 27 years, said: “A big part of our job is educating people because as much as it is very exciting for the fire service to go and put a fire out, we don’t actually want that to happen. We want to prevent them and we do that in a variety of different ways.
“That could include going to schools and talking on various different subjects, not just fire safety, we do water safety, road safety and [talking about] anti-social behaviour.”