In the first of a new series, John Judd assistant chief fire officer of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue, makes clear what kind of fire service he would like to see. John comments: ” It is appropriate for me to write this ‘Last Word’ at the time of my retirement following a 37-year career in the UK fire and rescue service, and as I am approaching the end of my term as Immediate Past President of the Institution of Fire Engineers.”
It is a wonderful opportunity to have my say and to put the ‘world to rights’ and I will not waste it with reflections on the past. I prefer instead to offer some thoughts for the future. The fire and rescue service is undergoing more change than it has experienced in a generation. In the great scheme of things, none of the change is very radical; much of it has been debated, discussed and predicted for years. What is dramatic is the speed and volume of change now that the dam holding back developments has burst.
In this piece, I thought it would be appropriate to consider the change in the fire and rescue service, in the context of the wider UK fire protection profession. I believe that those changes are now beginning to impact on the wider fire profession and will do so even more in the near future.
The government’s white paper Our Fire and Rescue Service published in 2003, described the prevention strategy as resting on the three strands of: designing fire safety into buildings; maintaining a safe environment; and promoting fire safe behaviour. Fire and rescue services are now planning and responding to emergencies on the basis of risk assessment and management.
April this year was the start of the second year of Integrated Risk Management Plans. Work is underway preparing plans for year three. Gone, therefore, are the prescriptive operational fire cover standards and in their place are locally determined approaches, based on a fire and rescue service’s professional judgement. Going is the prescriptive approach of the Fire Precautions Act 1971. By April 2006, risk-based fire safety will be the only option, demanding professional judgement of responsible persons and enforcers. What does this mean for the fire profession?
In the past, the application of ‘expertise’ tended to reside in the relatively few professionals who originate the prescriptive standards. Whether they were standards of fire protection or fire fighting response, the science and engineering and professional judgement came pre-packaged and complete. The evidence for the standards may have been solid, or it may have simply been the result of a consensus of ‘experts’ but they were ‘accepted’ standards. For those involved with the application of the standards there was arguably less skill and judgement required. We needed only to understand the rules and to apply them and we could be safe in the knowledge that we had applied accepted standards.
Fire engineered solutions (or more often, part engineered solutions) have become commonplace in larger buildings. Now, however, performance and risk-based approaches are to be used in everything from simple fire risk assessments for life safety in corner shops, to the management of whole communities. Every fire professional will need to make sound, evidence-based judgements using their knowledge, skills and understanding.
Throughout my career, I have always been most influenced by those who have developed their own and others’ understanding of the science and practice of fire, and its behaviour – and the behaviour of people, buildings and materials – when exposed to fire. In my view, the most able fire-fighters and incident commanders are those who continually study their subject. They are fire engineers, carrying out their fire engineering in the most dynamic of environments, a real fire. The effective management and leadership of the fire and rescue service is inseparable from sound fire engineering, particularly as we increasingly adopt the risk based planning and management approaches. The integrated risk management plans that are replacing standards of fire cover must be based on evidence and sound risk based fire engineering.
There are those who take a different view; those who believe that the service can be led and managed by people with the generic management skills required of any organisation. I imagine that if the public were to be consulted, they would support the idea that ‘the fire chief’ should really know about fire.
The challenge for the future is to ensure that all fire professionals are developed with a full understanding of fire engineering, in its broadest definition. In my view there has never been a more important time for the profession to work together to promote knowledge, skill understanding and an ethos of continuing professional development. There has never been a more important time to have a strong, effective and multi-disciplinary professional body.
I hope that, as I move into a different phase of my career as a fire professional, I shall see the profession coming together to ensure that these new approaches are implemented safely and effectively for the benefit of the communities we all seek to protect.
John Judd
