Yeah mate remember all those massive fires all around the UK? Oh wait you don’t? Me neither. Can’t be that bad if no one noticed.
Well done the Wildfire’s. Keep it up people and this year we can do even better.
Frankly, we need the Forestry Commission (and perhaps Natural England) to be a bigger player in this, both on their own land and pushing the issues with private land owners (which they do on other issues like disease and pest control). Historically, they were really involved in the issue, to the point the fire brigade used to listen to them at wildfires and there were certain things only the Forestry Commission were allowed to do, like back burning. The Forestry Commission can use blue lights and sirens by law, same as the fire service because of this. They are the country’s largest land manager and are UK wide. Its the model in the vast majority of countries that land managers assist at wildfires with a large body of trained staff and resources and can carry out prevention work year round.
The fire service mutual aid system collapsed during last summer. Even with more resources, it will always get to that point. We shouldn’t be pushing wildfire prevention work through the year on local authority fire services (which some have started), they are not land managers. During times like last summer, the only way to fix it is to bring in help from outside the fire service. I’m not sure why the UK is trying to re-invent the wheel on this.
We know it will go down:
1) Public services will continue to have their budgets cut
2) someone will point out how dangerous this is/how the public demand better
3) Govt announce a 1% increase as a fig leaf
4) inevitable disaster happens
5) Govt say it was unpredictable and they’re sorry, promise “largest ever cash injection” which will only equate to like a 4% increase when experts say 15% increase is needed. This 4% increase is against a backdrop of 40% cuts in the last ten years
6) Govt then boasts they’ve put 10,000 extra staff on, even though they have cut 200k in the last decade.
Rinse & repeat with some other service
Maybe we should scrap the PCC roles and give their budget to the fire service instead
We have a Tory government. They are incapable of raising their game.
Had 2 large fires near me last summer that knocked out power/mobile/internet for a day and had a few days after of intermittent services after aswell as bkocking 1 of the 2 roads to my area for a week. Fire service had enough guys to stop some damage but it wasn’t exactly a convincing response.
I’ll get you 30 guys tomorrow that would volunteer to be firefighters like the hotshots/handcrews in the US but it needs someone like the forestry commission (as mentioned above) to commit to equipping and training then the fire service commiting to deploying them
I’m sure doing something about it would be woke and we wouldn’t want that now.
Live near a bit of moorland and it’s been on fire more than 5 times already this yeah either idiots arson or both I guess
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Yeah mate remember all those massive fires all around the UK? Oh wait you don’t? Me neither. Can’t be that bad if no one noticed.
Well done the Wildfire’s. Keep it up people and this year we can do even better.
Frankly, we need the Forestry Commission (and perhaps Natural England) to be a bigger player in this, both on their own land and pushing the issues with private land owners (which they do on other issues like disease and pest control). Historically, they were really involved in the issue, to the point the fire brigade used to listen to them at wildfires and there were certain things only the Forestry Commission were allowed to do, like back burning. The Forestry Commission can use blue lights and sirens by law, same as the fire service because of this. They are the country’s largest land manager and are UK wide. Its the model in the vast majority of countries that land managers assist at wildfires with a large body of trained staff and resources and can carry out prevention work year round.
The fire service mutual aid system collapsed during last summer. Even with more resources, it will always get to that point. We shouldn’t be pushing wildfire prevention work through the year on local authority fire services (which some have started), they are not land managers. During times like last summer, the only way to fix it is to bring in help from outside the fire service. I’m not sure why the UK is trying to re-invent the wheel on this.
We know it will go down:
1) Public services will continue to have their budgets cut
2) someone will point out how dangerous this is/how the public demand better
3) Govt announce a 1% increase as a fig leaf
4) inevitable disaster happens
5) Govt say it was unpredictable and they’re sorry, promise “largest ever cash injection” which will only equate to like a 4% increase when experts say 15% increase is needed. This 4% increase is against a backdrop of 40% cuts in the last ten years
6) Govt then boasts they’ve put 10,000 extra staff on, even though they have cut 200k in the last decade.
Rinse & repeat with some other service
Maybe we should scrap the PCC roles and give their budget to the fire service instead
We have a Tory government. They are incapable of raising their game.
Had 2 large fires near me last summer that knocked out power/mobile/internet for a day and had a few days after of intermittent services after aswell as bkocking 1 of the 2 roads to my area for a week. Fire service had enough guys to stop some damage but it wasn’t exactly a convincing response.
I’ll get you 30 guys tomorrow that would volunteer to be firefighters like the hotshots/handcrews in the US but it needs someone like the forestry commission (as mentioned above) to commit to equipping and training then the fire service commiting to deploying them
I’m sure doing something about it would be woke and we wouldn’t want that now.
Live near a bit of moorland and it’s been on fire more than 5 times already this yeah either idiots arson or both I guess