Fire authority members feel the heat

Councillors on the training day

Battling through smoke filled buildings in blazing heat and cutting casualties from cars might be all in a day’s work for fire crew, but members of the Fire Authority experienced it first hand during a training day.

Councillors from across Greater Manchester, including Rochdale Councillor Ann Metcalfe, who form part of the Fire Authority leading Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service joined their uniformed colleagues in breathing apparatus and heavy protective gear for the day at a training centre.

And among the major challenges ahead was entering the ‘smoke house’ to find a casualty in the pitch black and cutting the roof from a car to free a motorist in distress.

The scenarios were put together by specialist training staff to mirror both operational incidents and those tests that new recruits would need to pass.

Deputy Chairman of the Fire Authority Councillor Jack Walton said the members found it a brilliant way to understand the organisation and its role more clearly.

He said: “We have done a couple of these familiarisation days and they’re really important. As members of the Fire Authority we make decisions on kit for the crew and where money is spent as a priority. How can we possibly do this if we don’t have any insight into what life is like on the front line of the organisation?”

As part of the day, the group also tried out some of the service’s kit for cutting people from cars and vehicles following collisions and tackled the role of incident commander at the centre’s state of the art simulation suite.

County Fire Officer and Chief Executive Steve McGuirk added: “This kind of hands on experience of what the fire service is really about is great. I’m so pleased members volunteered to get involved and find out more about the kind of things our crew tackle every day