Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service

Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, formerly Tyne and Wear Metropolitan Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service covering the area of Tyne and Wear

Tyne and Wear

Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan county in north east England around the mouths of the Rivers Tyne and Wear. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972...

, England, providing emergency fire cover to a population of 1.08 million people and a geographical area of 540 square kilometres. Its Chief Fire Officer

Chief Fire Officer

A Chief Fire Officer or CFO is the highest ranking Officer in the UK Fire & Rescue Service. There are currently 59 Chief Fire Officers serving in the United Kingdom in charge of County Fire Services....

is Iain Bathgate, and its vision is 'Creating the safest community'.

History

Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service was formed in 1974, however it had been a requirement, since the passing of the Fire Brigades Act 1938

Fire Brigades Act 1938

The Fire Brigades Act 1938 was the primary legislation for Great Britain, excluding London, that placed responsibility for the provision of a fire brigade onto the local authority, and away from the insurance companies....

for local authorities to provide fire cover. Previously fire cover was provided by a number of smaller services In 2004 the name of the fire and rescue service was changed from Tyne and Wear Metropolitan Fire Brigade to Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, to reflect changes in local authority structure. The FRS works closely with Northumbria Police

Northumbria Police

Northumbria Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the areas of Northumberland and Tyne and Wear in North East England. The service is the sixth largest police force in England and Wales. The current Chief Constable is Sue Sim who was appointed by Northumbria Police...

in order to promote community

Community

The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...

issues.

Overview

The Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service serves over one million people in Sunderland

City of Sunderland

The City of Sunderland is a local government district of Tyne and Wear, in North East England, with the status of a city and metropolitan borough...

, Newcastle

Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

and Tyneside

Tyneside

Tyneside is a conurbation in North East England, defined by the Office of National Statistics, which is home to over 80% of the population of Tyne and Wear. It includes the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Metropolitan Boroughs of Gateshead, North Tyneside and South Tyneside — all settlements on...

. The service responded to 24,025 incidents in the period 2004 to 2005, which consisted of 13,060 fires, 8495 false alarms and 2470 special service calls. Of its 15 wholetime, one part-wholetime/part-retained, and one retained fire stations, the FRS operates 48 frontline fire appliances consisting of:

31 pumping appliances
2 aerial ladder platforms
1 turntable ladder
1 emergency tender
1 Operational support unit
1 special rescue tender
1 command support unit
1 Boat transporter
1 fire boat
1 incident response unit
1 DIM unit
6 prime movers
5 Urban search & rescue pods
2 High Volume Pump Unit Pods
1 dis-robe pod
1 re-robe pod

Fire stations

There are currently seventeen fire stations in operation with the Service. From 1 July 2009, the names of the fire stations were changed, 'to provide consistency throughout the Service and to support the introduction of national callsigns'. The table below shows the former and current names for all seventeen stations:

Former name	Current name	Location	No. of fire appliances	Status	Call sign
Birtley	Gateshead South	Durham Road	2	Wholetime and retained	FAT13
Chopwell	Gateshead West	Derwent Street	1	Retained	FAT14
Colby Court	Newcastle South	Elswick Road	3	Wholetime	FAT23
Fossway	Newcastle East	Union Road	5	Wholetime	FAT22
Fulwell	Sunderland North	Station Road	2	Wholetime	FAT51
Gateshead	Gateshead East	Dryden Road	4	Wholetime	FAT12
Gosforth	Newcastle North	Jubilee Road	2	Wholetime	FAT21
Hebburn	South Tyneside West	Victoria Road West	3	Wholetime	FAT44
North Moor	Sunderland Central	Northmoor Road	2	Wholetime	FAT50
Rainton Bridge	Sunderland South	Mercantile Road	1	Wholetime	FAT53
South Shields	South Tyneside East	John Reid Road	4	Wholetime	FAT42
Railway Row	Sunderland East	Railway Row	2	Wholetime	FAT52
Swalwell	Gateshead North	Market Lane	2	Wholetime	FAT11
Tynemouth	North Tyneside East	Preston North Road	2	Wholetime	FAT32
Wallsend	North Tyneside South	Hadrian Road	2	Wholetime	FAT33
Washington	Sunderland West	Glover Industrial Estate	2	Wholetime	FAT54
West Denton	Newcastle West	West Denton Way	3	Wholetime	FAT24
Barmston-mere Training Centre		Nissan Way			FAT60

Dennis/Volvo fire appliances

Originally TWFRS Dennis Specialist Vehicles

Dennis Specialist Vehicles

Dennis Specialist Vehicles is a major British coachbuilder and manufacturer of specialised commercial vehicles based in Guildford, England...

, efficient for fire service use. Over time the service depended less on Dennis appliances and more on Volvo

Volvo

AB Volvo is a Swedish builder of commercial vehicles, including trucks, buses and construction equipment. Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems, aerospace components and financial services...

. In recent years it has begun to use more Dennis appliances and it is currently a variation of Volvo and Dennis appliances. Now the brigade a going back to Volvo, with 17 new pumps & and new aerial ladder platform on order. The new aerial ladder platform is likely to replace the turntable ladder at Foxtrot, and 3 new operational support units are coming to replace the current operational support unit at Gateshead, the emergency tender at Colby Court and the special rescue tender at Hebburn.

Community fire stations

The intention of community fire stations is to use them as meeting places to discuss fire related issues, as well as offer facilities for local citizens to receive fire safety

Fire safety

Fire safety refers to precautions that are taken to prevent or reduce the likelihood of a fire that may result in death, injury, or property damage, alert those in a structure to the presence of a fire in the event one occurs, better enable those threatened by a fire to survive, or to reduce the...

information if should they require it. Another aim of the community fire stations was to "Provide the community with the highest standards of fire safety and firefighting services available" A lot of the community fire stations now have YFA (Young Firefighters Association) which allow children to experience what it would be like to be a firefighter and what work and effort is involved.

During the 1980s and early 1990s - the brigade used the "welephant

Welephant

Welephant is a mascot / cartoon character originally used by fire brigades in the United Kingdom to promote fire safety to children. More recently however the character has become the mascot for the Children's Burn Trust.-Creation of Welephant:...

" character to publicise it’s fire safety scheme amongst schoolchildren. As well as visiting schools, the character (usually an officer dressed up inside the giant red elephant costume) visited supermarkets and towns across the brigade’s patch highlighting the message during the school holidays.

Changes to the fire service

Over the next few years the service will be buying new fire appliances and building several new fire stations. There are currently plans to replace one community fire station in Tynemouth and the future of Fulwell is currently being investigated (i.e. refurbishment, re-location or rebuilding on same site). The emergency tender based at Sunderland Central Fire Station ended its service in March 2007. 2 new high volume pump unit pods have been acquired by the FRS.

External links

Video clips

Tyne & Wear YouTube channel

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