Incident Response Units

What are incident response units?

Incident response units are large vehicles which carry equipment allowing the Brigade to decontaminate large numbers of casualties. Each incident response unit carries two public mass decontamination shower structures and a range of other equipment. It takes approximately 30 minutes to set up a mass decontamination unit with a capacity to decontaminate up to of 200 casualties per hour. These were introduced under the government’s New Dimensions programme.

What kind of incidents are incident response units used at?

These vehicles make up part of the Brigades capability to respond to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) incidents. They would be used if it was necessary to decontaminate large numbers of people who had been exposed to a dangerous substance.

What is alternate crewing?

Alternate crewing would mean that staff based at the same location could operate different vehicles as and when they are needed.

How many staff could be affected if the proposals were accepted to change crewing of incident response units (IRUs)?

No one is going to lose their job. We would plan to reduce the numbers of trainee firefighters we recruit during an implementation period. There would be an impact on firefighters currently serving fire stations we are proposing to move specialist vehicles from, but they will either move to another station or move with the vehicle to its new base. Further work will be completed regarding alternate crewing, but at this time introducing alternate crewing at incident response unit stations is expected to result in between 60 to 80 fewer posts being required.

Are you going to close fire stations or reduce the number of appliances?

No, we are improving how we manage our resources, not reducing equipment or fire stations.

How would this affect the incident response unit training for firefighters?

We will be making one incident response unit permanently available for training, improving our ability to offer this type of specialist training to firefighters. Under the current arrangements there is no incident response unit permanently available for training. This vehicle would remain available for use alongside the other nine incident response units if required.

By cutting two incident response units will you be putting London at risk?

We are not cutting two response units, we have, and will be retaining, ten IRUs. At the moment, four are wholetime crewed and six are alternate crewed. The proposal is that two will remain whole time crewed, seven will be alternate crewed and one will relocate to the Safety Skills training team on immediate recall.

These appliances are part of the national capability which ensures we are prepared to respond in the event of a major chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear incident. Each vehicle carries enough equipment to decontaminate up to 200 people an hour. In 2007/08, 17 incident response unit attendances were made to only ten incidents, none of which involved decontamination activity. Whilst it is important the Brigade retains the equipment and ensures staffs are fully trained to operate it, it is not good value for money to have four full time crews on duty 24 hours a day.