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Spotlight

At any one time there are numerous fire safety initiatives and campaigns being run around the country at both a local and national level by the country's Fire & Rescue Services. This section provides information on just a handful of those that are currently underway and gives you a great appreciation for the diverse role the Fire & Rescue Services play in the community.

• Fire Gateway wins prestigious national award
• Cleveland - Award winning services for asylum seekers and refugees
• Hereford & Worcester - Amputee firefighter returns to work

Fire Gateway wins prestigious national award

The Fire Gateway has won a prestigious national award for the best e-Government and online services, announced on 22 January 2008.

The e-Government National Awards are the UK's highest level commendation for the best e-Government services, which, through innovative online delivery have positively transformed and improved lives.

The Fire Gateway was announced the winner in the category: "Building a fairer society with e-Government, improving lives on a large or national scale".

In winning the award, it beat off competition from online services provided by the NHS, The Prime Minister's Office and the British Library, amongst others.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown praised the award winners and finalists in a video link to the Awards Ceremony at the Dorchester Hotel in London, saying: "I commend you all for your initiative, your drive and your commitment to providing the public with the very best."

Gill Newton, Chief Executive, Fire Service College, was delighted that the Fire Gateway had been recognised for providing the best standard of online services. She said: "In the true traditions of the Fire and Rescue Service, the Fire Gateway represents effective teamwork, innovation and commitment, but most importantly, it is all about providing the highest standard of service to the public. This award acknowledges that achievement."

Councillor Michael Murphy (East Sussex Fire and Rescue Authority), Chair of the Fire Gateway Steering Group said: "This award is a great acknowledgement that the Fire Gateway has already started to make a meaningful change to people's lives, helping them to identify fire risks in the home and then enabling them to do something about it."

Chief Fire Officer Barry Dixon, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, the lead authority involved in the development of the Fire Gateway said: "The Fire Gateway is a valuable tool, helping Fire and Rescue Services communicate more effectively with communities and enhancing the incredible work the Service does in fire prevention through education, partnership, advice and support."

Since the Fire Gateway was launched, over 4,000,000 pages on the site have been viewed by users and more than 25,000 people have used it to complete forms offering advice and support across a wide range of fire safety activities

Link : e-Government National Awards

Cleveland - Award winning services for asylum seekers and refugees

Imagine that you have just arrived in England from another country where there is no Fire and Rescue Service, or where the Fire Service will only attend if you are high enough up the social ladder or willing to pay for the service; or where everyone in a uniform is to be feared. You can't speak the language, you don't know which telephone number to call and you need help. Urgently!

 This is the situation facing many families in this country today.

 It is also a situation that Cleveland Fire Brigade has tackled as part of an award winning approach to providing services to asylum seekers and refugees.

The problem was identified by Cleveland Fire Brigade in 2001 when there was a spate of house fires in a very small area of Middlesbrough in a very short space of time.

 Fire crews turned up to a fire to find the terrified occupants dangling their children out of the upstairs windows, ready to drop them out. The crews were able to rescue all of the occupants safely, but soon realised that all of these fires involved properties housing asylum seekers and refugees.

 It was clear that unless this very vulnerable group received vital fire safety messages and preventative measures, there would be more fires and, inevitably, fire deaths and injuries.

 Station Manager Alan Gill, and subsequently the Community Education Team, started building up a network of contacts with individuals and groups that were working closely with asylum seekers and refugees, including housing providers, Borough Councils, the North East Consortium for Asylum Seekers and Refugees (NECARS) and the National Asylum Support Service (NASS).

 A strategy was then formulated to deal with the issue, which included:

• Carrying out home fire safety checks in the homes of asylum seekers and refugees and fitting free smoke alarms, giving advice leaflets in an appropriate language and talking directly to the householder about home, fire safety in their own language, using interpreters, if necessary.
• Working in partnership with local colleges to deliver fire safety advice in "English for Speakers of Overseas Language" (ESOL) classes attended by Asylum Seekers and Refugees, as part of their curriculum.
• Working with Borough Councils to ensure home fire safety advice is included in the literature asylum seekers are provided with immediately they enter the area.
• Working with housing providers in both the public and private sectors to promote home fire safety checks to their asylum seeker tenants.
• Using our Bi-lingual Fire Safety Officers, who are British Asian, to access asylum seekers through international family centres, drop-in venues and places of worship and give home fire safety input to them either on a one to one basis, or in groups. This was particularly important, as uniformed white British male and female fire service personnel had previously failed to gain access to these groups and places.

Since 2003, Cleveland Fire Brigade has carried out over 200 home fire safety checks in the homes of people believed to be asylum seekers or refugees.

 As a result of the campaign, there has only been a single known dwelling fire in a house involving asylum seekers since April 2004. Front line staff have been developed to deliver the home fire safety checks to asylum seekers. In one case, a firefighter carried out a home fire safety check in French for a family from the Ivory Coast who subsequently suffered a fire.

 It is almost certain that without the visit and the advice they were given, the parents and 2 month old baby would have died in the fire.

 Last year, Cleveland Fire Brigade received the Guardian Public Services Award for Service Delivery to Asylum Seekers.

 Councillor Robbie Payne, Chairman of Cleveland Fire Authority said: "We are delighted to receive this award which recognises the work done by the Brigade, in partnership with other agencies, to ensure that asylum seekers and refugees have equal and easy access to our services.

 Chief Fire Officer John Doyle, who received the award on behalf of the Brigade said: "The Brigade has worked closely with local colleges, councils and support services for asylum seekers and refugees to work out ways to deliver fire safety advice and drive down fires in the homes of people whose first language is not necessarily English.

 Bilingual Fire Safety Officer Pervaze Rehman said: "We have developed innovative and unique methods of getting fire safety advice across which includes the use of interpreters, advice leaflets in an appropriate language and working in partnership with local colleges to deliver fire safety advice in classes for speakers of overseas language."

Hereford & Worcester - Amputee firefighter returns to work

Simon Hawkins, a firefighter with the Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service, has become the first in Europe to return to frontline duty, just 18 months after losing part of his left leg.

 When Simon first qualified as a fire-fighter, it was like a dream come true for him. As a teenager growing up in Worcestershire, it had been his life-long ambition to follow in the footsteps of his fire-officer grandfather Sam.

 That dream was shattered when, after 12 years in the Fire and Rescue Service, Simon was involved in a near fatal high-speed motorcycle crash. He was taken to hospital, but his injuries were so severe that doctors were forced to amputate his lower left leg.

 Although he was initially devastated at losing part of his leg, he committed himself to returning to work to continue to do what he had always wanted to do. "I was determined to try and get back to being a frontline firefighter, and my Grandad was my inspiration," he said.

 Based at Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, Simon's colleagues on Green Watch organised a series of fundraising events and in a couple of months they had collected £20,000 to pay for Simon to be fitted with the state of the art prosthetic limb.

 Thanks to this support from the community and his colleagues in the Service, Simon undertook the gruelling task of retraining. He was further inspired to get back to work after meeting Bill Henry of Volusia County Fire Department, Florida, who had become the first amputee firefighter in America following a similar motorcycle collision in 2000.

 Paul Hayden, Chief Fire Officer of Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service said:"I am delighted to see Simon making a return to operational duties. His situation is currently unique in the Fire and Rescue Service, and his remarkable recovery is a testament to his hard work, dedication and commitment. His return to operational duties has presented a number of unique challenges for the Service, but they were challenges we were determined to meet from the outset.

 "We have taken a very careful approach to his rehabilitation, working closely with him at each stage to identify and address any issues or risks arising. Whilst providing encouragement, guidance and support for Simon throughout, our overriding concern has been for his own safety, the safety of colleagues working with him and ultimately the public whom we serve.

"In addition to being a statutory requirement, treating people with disabilities fairly makes good business sense. For a service such as ours, with extensive training requirements, retaining an employee who becomes disabled can actually save money, ensuring that we hold on to valuable experience and avoiding the cost of training new people. More importantly for us, our work with Simon has prevented the unnecessary loss of an experienced and valued colleague and will, I trust, provide hope and inspiration for others," he said.

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