The Childhood Dream of Driving a Fire Engine
If your birth year begins with 19, odds are high that you played with a toy fire truck as a child and spent at least a couple of happy hours dreaming about driving a big red engine to the rescue.
While most people grew up, took a look at the decidedly low salary a council-run fire fighter draws and made other plans, there are still some of us daydreaming about the sound of sirens and large ladders.
The Growing Trend of Private Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs)
And while the physical fitness requirements alone would eliminate a lot of us from following that dream, some people decided that they would, and could, get to own a fire truck of their own.
There are a number of private and specialised fire and rescue services (FRSs) throughout the UK.
What Kinds of Places Use Private Fire Services?
From airports to large factories like BMW, to nuclear power stations and ports, a number of places have their own first line of defence whether required by law or simply to reduce the risk of damage to life and property.
Event fire safety units are usually private event companies that often use off-duty fire fighters and paramedics. They cover events from air shows to film sets, and you’ll have seen them at concerts and regattas too. There is usually a rapid response vehicle armed with standard fire appliances such as fire blankets and extinguishers.
Choosing the Right Type of Service and Market
There are companies that offer the whole package, so to speak. Dedicated pump rescue ladders, off-road appliances, and a host of technical and specialist vehicles. It’s a niche industry designed to cover areas where the fire service has no legal obligation to attend, nor the specialist vehicles needed for high-risk categories like petroleum refineries.
It's going to be up to you to decide what type of service you want to offer. A lot of it comes down to location and available work. The market is competitive and having your own background in crisis management and fire handling will go a long way towards giving you credibility.
The Key Role of Staffing in Your Fire Response Service
Staffing is your next big investment. It takes a special type of person to run into a fire. While firefighters have a reputation for being adrenaline junkies, the hard reality is that you want people who can think quickly and clearly under pressure and still go ahead and do the job effectively and efficiently – and come out alive.
Insurance and Legal Requirements for Your Fire Response Service
If you decide to open your own FRSs, apart from the intensive training and certification for your staff which needs to be kept up to date, you’ll need fire engine insurance, along with any buildings, equipment, and other vehicles.
You’ll also want professional indemnity insurance, and employers and public liability cover.
Taking Care of Your Staff’s Wellbeing
Your staff will need decent, comprehensive cover as well. Whether they work for local authorities or private companies, firefighting is a hazardous occupation.
Most authority firefighters quit the job due to poor working conditions and worse pay. PTSD, on-the-job injuries, and poor support are also cited.
(What a lot of people don’t realise is that very little of an authority firefighter’s job involves fighting fires. They are often the first on scene to road traffic accidents and other serious incidents, and those incidents leave marks on the people who clean them up.
It’s a nasty shock to the system when you’ve trained for fires and end up using the engine shovel to clean up a road instead.)
While unless something goes very wrong on your site your team are unlikely to deal with the same level of trauma, giving them support in advance goes a long way to keeping them safe, happy, and relatively sane.
Prevention Training: The Key to Reducing Risks
A big part of your work is likely to be prevention training – teaching people to avoid the situations that can result in your trucks need to roll out in the first place. While a lot of what you’ll teach might appear to be common sense, you’ll be amazed at how many people do not understand correlation in potentially dangerous situations.
There is a video clip floating around the internet of someone who decided that the best way to open a bag of raw cotton – while standing in it up to their knees – was to use a lighter and burn it open.
It went about as well as you would expect, and will probably be used in work safety videos for the next twenty years.
Something like this could easily be avoided with the correct training in place.
The Rewards of Running a Fire Response Service
Running a private fire response service can be both lucrative and emotionally rewarding.
And you get a fire engine.