Will London’s First Responders Be Slower Responders After Station Closures?

With firefighters leaving the UK capital’s oldest fire station for the final time last week, the London Fire Brigade’s average response time will surely come under greater scrutiny.

Established 140 years ago Clerkenwell Station is one of 10 stations being closed to save GB pound 45 million over two years.

Emotional firemen emerged from the East-London station on Wednesday to applause from supporters whose protests ultimately proved in vain.

The London brigade is also cutting 552 firefighter jobs and decommissioning 14 fire engines.

If the loss to cultural heritage is saddening — though the talk is of granting the buildings listing status as they convert into flats or restaurants — then the consequences for response times are unthinkable, according to London regional secretary of the Fire Brigades Union Paul Embery.

“Boris Johnson will have blood on his hands,” said Embery. “It will be only a matter of time before someone dies because a fire engine did not get to them in time.

“You cannot close 10 fire stations and slash nearly 600 firefighter jobs without compromising public safety. These stations have protected generations of Londoners, and they are as necessary now as they ever were.”

Proponents of the closures point to a 50% reduction in fires across the capital, while national callouts have dropped to an all-time low.

But while incidents are less frequent, for which the fire-prevention industry can take some credit, the jury’s out on whether the capital’s average response time — 6 minutes 38 seconds for domestic fires in 2011-2012 — will be affected.

Writing in the Guardian, Suzanne Moore argues that the cuts are symptomatic of a widespread underestimation of the difficulty of a firefighter’s job.

Improvements in fire detection, notification of first responders, and situational awareness technologies also perhaps emboldened fire chiefs in making cutbacks. The fact remains, however, that many businesses, and most residential properties, have fairly basic fire-prevention technology in place.

As resource constraints tighten, reducing the number of false alarms is increasingly seen as an achievable way of slashing costs without compromising safety.

In 2012 the Fire Brigade dealt with 25,550 false alarms at a cost of GB pound 37 million — GB pound 8 million shy of the savings targeting by the station closures. Improved fire-prevention training along with simpler installation and maintenance can all help in this regard.

The London Fire Service hopes that unnecessary callouts to commercial premises will fall after introducing a fine to businesses responsible for 10 callouts or more over a 12-month period.

What are your views on the fire station closures? Is merging stations the most cost-effective way of making the service leaner without compromising safety in a time of austerity and falling incident numbers? Or is it a folly that will jeopardise the Fire Service’s six-minute callout target — and therefore lives?