Fire Safety, new training initiative

Published by Kerrie Beck for Longhurst Group in Housing and also in Communities, Education, Environment

Friendship Care and Housing (Friendship) has joined up with the Leicestershire Fire and Service Rescue (LFRS) team in a new training initiative. Working in partnership with LFRS, Friendship, with the approval of customers in the surrounding area, have allowed fire fighters access to some of their empty properties so that they can carry out various fire safety training drills.

One of the houses was completely smoke logged to allow two firefighters to search, locate and rescue two missing training dummies. The team wore breathing apparatus and carried a hose reel to simulate operational conditions.

Phil Carruthers, Friendship’s Technical Officer, was alongside the firefighters when they went into the property and was able to watch the crews searching upstairs and downstairs through a thermal imaging camera. Phil said: “Being in the property as it filled with smoke was a surreal experience, within minutes I couldn't see an arm’s length in front of me. I can only imagine how frightening the real thing would be. Seeing how the fire service calmly and quickly carried out their searches was amazing, it gave a real insight into the hard work and training that these men and women go through in order to keep us safe, not to mention the dangerous situations they deal with when a real fire breaks out.”

“The whole neighbourhood embraced the exercise, coming out of their homes to watch the drill and discuss fire safety issues. It was an extremely interesting and informative exercise and we look forward to working closely with Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service to carry out more of these essential drills.”

Crew Manager Ben Mclean said: “I’m very grateful to Friendship for making this happen. The training was great. This has been, and hopefully will continue to be, a great asset to us in delivering more realistic training. It also gave our firefighters the opportunity to speak to a number of local residents about fire safety.”

All residents in the area were kept informed and due to the location of the house the engine was parked on a neighbour’s drive so the road wasn’t blocked.