I am dumbfounded at the level of fires in fire stations, See link;

http://www.ifsecglobal.com/fires-fire-stations/

I know fire stations are complex buildings which operate 24 hours a day etc etc, but you couldn't make this one up http://www.dailymail.co....aze-risk-assessment.html

From 2010, for those who haven't seen it before,

John

Ah, but Boris, a risk assessment isn't a piece of paper; it's a process from identification through to control and then on to review etc, and in that sense the DM headline is right. Though I wouldn't for a moment think the DM headline writer understands RA....

John

To err is human. Uniforms de-humanise, they were designed to, but it doesn't alter the fact that the peson inside it is still a human and we all make mistakes.

Can any of us here say we have never injured ourselves doing something where we should have known better?

Many years ago in Liverpool Fire Brigade, (pre 1974) when the kitchen man was a rider fireman, in an older style fire station, pre war built, and the kitchen was detached from the main station building, the crews returned from a call to find the kitchen "well alight", an expression used when the whole place was on fire.

A pan of chips was inadvertently left unattended when the call came for both appliances to attend a fire.

A main jet was got to work and the fire was dealt with and quite some salvage and cleaning work undertaken.

As has been said, fireman are human beings and the kitchen man obviously forgot what he was cooking when the urgent call out came through.

I would suggest the blame should have been placed at the fire brigade managers who did away with the station cooks.

My first callout as a newbie retained firefighter (lunchtime on the day I was to attend my first station night after my training course) was for the business adjacent to the fire station burning down (welding in a very old vehicle repair garage).

I also lived closest to the station (30 secs run down the hill and over the fence) so arrived first, and all in all it was one of those excellent 'learning points' for when things don't go as expected. I didn't know who everyone (in fact, almost anyone) was, our station was smoke logged within minutes of me getting there and people arriving by car parked on top of our hydrant in the smoky car park, which I was sent off to set up (and had trouble finding).

I've always remembered that day as a reminder to think about what could prevent an emergency plan from working. We did ok in the end, prevented the fire from spreading at the cost of a slightly melted fire engine, but it was the classic baptism. My first job after BA qualification was also so equally memorable that they decided to think twice before sending me on courses.