“It’s a myth that fire fighters hang about the station waiting for fires” states Fire fighter Larry Quinn who was kind enough to be interviewed for Have Your Say magazine with the aim of enlightening readers about the types of services that Greater Manchester fire and rescue service offer to the general public.
Larry explained that Manchester fire service is broken down into five groups known as watches (this term originated in the Navy) these are red, white, blue, green and amber watch, between them they provide twenty four hour cover.
Watch manager Finn, the officer-in-charge of white watch, is dedicated to all aspects of the service but in particular effective training of fire fighters and the enhancement of community safety. There are numerous training opportunities and exercises that replicate real life situations for example mock road traffic collisions with scrap cars.
The community side of the fire and rescue services, encompasses a wide variety
of subjects and venues:
The ‘Learn not to burn’ project takes place in schools.
‘FACE’ is specific to fire awareness child education.
‘Young cadets’ are an established uniformed youth organisation closely associated
with the fire service.
‘Crucial crew’ aims to promote fire safety and good citizenship.
The fire service has a dedicated community department that delivers the community projects and appropriate lectures for example pre bonfire night!
Fire fighter Simon Whittaker kindly delivered a presentation at Cariocca community space in Miles Platting on the dangers of being in stolen motor vehicles and the impact that it has on lives, to the young people who attend the AMP Youth action project. It was an excellent presentation and really gave the young people food for thought.
Home risk assessments are free to the public and are a really important part of the work. They involve a home visit where a fire fighter will point out fire safety aspects in the home and also and most importantly the fitting of smoke alarms. These smoke alarms are given, and fitted free of charge and the alarm batteries have approximately a ten year life span as opposed to shop bought alarms which last about one year only.
Larry stressed the importance of having smoke alarms as he has witnessed first hand where a working smoke alarm would have saved lives!
A recent tragic fire reinforces this point. The fire fighter concerned said that they got to the house in exactly 3 minutes and found the home to have two smoke alarms both with dead batteries. However if these alarms had worked it would have given the family time to get out of the house. It is such a simple process to arrange a home visit. Just a free phone call to 0800 555 815 for a home risk assessment.
I would personally like to thank all the fire fighters involved for the interview, the tour of the station for the young people of AMP, and the valuable presentation. Please readers do not hesitate to contact the service with any concerns or queries they really are a nice bunch of people.
Martina Convery
