FIRE CREWS are spending more time responding to emergencies on the roads than at fires, Government statistics reveal.
Analysis of Department of Environment figures from 1995 to 2005 shows a 300 per cent increase in the number of road traffic incidents attended and a 5 per cent drop in the number of fires attended, the Chief Fire Officers’ Association annual conference heard in Galway yesterday.
The number of “special service incidents” involving fallen trees, flooding and oil spills has also increased by about 300 per cent.
The increased activity on roads and motorways is exposing crews to risk due to increased traffic volumes, Dave Carroll, the association’s vice-chairman said.
A fireman and Garda were killed at the scene of a road crash in Foynes, Co Limerick, last year and there had been a “number of near misses involving fire personnel attending road-based incidents,” Mr Carroll, chief fire officer for Tipperary North, said.
A new set of guidelines published by the association examines problems associated with motorways. “The motorway network will very soon traverse very many fire service areas and we need to be in a position to respond to incidents on these roads from the day they open,” Mr Carroll said.
Delays in establishing a long-awaited national fire authority, the challenges posed by high-rise building development and climate change were among the themes discussed at yesterday’s opening session of the two-day conference.
Association chairman Jim Dunphy said establishing an authority was a key recommendation of the 2002 fire safety and fire services review. The Department of Environment, he said, had “cherry-picked” from the report, initiating a fire services change programme without addressing fundamental weaknesses.
A national fire authority was the only way of providing necessary leadership, Mr Dunphy said.
“Six years after the 2002 report, 26 years after the Stardust tribunal report and 33 years after the McKinsey Report, we still await major structural and institutional change at national level in the fire service,” he added.
The failure by successive governments to update fire regulations relating to private and commercial buildings since 1997 was highlighted by Irish Times Environment Editor Frank McDonald. Two revisions had taken place in Britain during the same time period, he told the conference.
Similarly, Ireland had no flood warning system unlike Britain, in spite of that iconic image of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern standing in the floods of Drumcondra in November 2002, after the river Tolka burst its banks.
Ireland was contributing to and was experiencing the impact of climate change, and the development of a US-style car-dependent culture due to suburban sprawl represented a “tipping point” in relation to sustainable development, Mr McDonald said.
Such sprawl in every city and virtually every town in Ireland represented the “physical legacy” of Ahern’s years as taoiseach, Mr McDonald said, with the suburbs of Dublin now extending to Gorey, Co Wexford; Mullingar, Co Westmeath; Virginia, Co Cavan; and Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan.
Mr McDonald said he did not believe that there would be a plethora of high-rise buildings, given the economic downturn.
However, fire officers expressed concern at the failure of Irish technical standards to keep up with high-rise development.
“Different building systems are being used and, in some cases, structures are being built abroad – like Lego bricks. These all present fire safety challenges to us,” Mr Dunphy said.