You are probably aware that, following a ballot, members of the Fire Brigade’s Union (England and Wales) will go on strike for a second time this Saturday 19th October, from 1830 to 2330.
In the parts of the UK affected, it may well be that the fire and rescue services will not be able to respond to 999 calls or, if they are, the time taken to arrive at the scene of an incident may be much longer than normal, and the resources which they are able to deploy severely curtailed. Where they can respond, with their limited resources, priority will be given to incidents where lives are at risk. This means that they may not be able to respond to incidents where only property is being damaged.
For these reasons it is very important that, during strike periods, businesses make every effort to reduce the chance of a fire occurring and to reduce its ability to spread quickly should one happen. Lives may depend upon how good precautions and fire safety management procedures are.
The Government and the individual fire and rescue services (F&RS) may publish fire safety advice for the strike periods. In the interim, to help businesses make preparations, Allianz have produced the attached Fire safety tips for before and during a firefighters’ strike.
