Kent Fire and Rescue Service

Kent Fire and Rescue Service
Operational area
Country	United Kingdom
Country	England
County	Kent
Agency overview
Employees	2,000
Facilities and equipment
Stations	55
Engines	66
Platforms	3
Squads	10
HAZMAT	1
USAR	5
Wildland	8
Rescue boats	4
Website
	Official website

Kent Fire and Rescue Service is the statutory fire and rescue service for the administrative county of Kent and the unitary authority area of Medway, covering a geographical area south of London, to the coast and including major shipping routes via the Thames and Medway rivers. The total coastline covered is 225 km (140 mi); it has 55 fire stations, and 4 district fire safety offices. The FRS provides emergency cover to a population of nearly 2 million.[1]

The area meets the boundaries of the London Fire Brigade to the north of the county, Surrey to the north west and East Sussex to the south west of Kent.

History

The first fire brigade appeared in Kent in 1802 when the Kent Fire Office formed an insurance brigade in Deptford (which was at the time part of Kent). In the same year, and completely separately from insurance companies, Hythe became the first town in Kent to set up its own fire brigade, followed by Ashford in 1826.

By the 20th century, it was quite fashionable for local authorities to have their own fire brigades. Maidstone had seen the formation of its borough fire brigade in 1901 when the Royal Insurance Company provided a new Shand Mason horse-drawn steam fire engine, named The Queen. This company had taken over the Kent Fire Office in the same year, simultaneously disbanding their own brigade. Things often became very competitive between individual town and village brigades, in many instances, each one trying to outdo its neighbour. In 1910, Bromley became the first town in Kent to house motorised fire engines, with two new Merryweather vehicles being stationed there.

Until 1938, the provision of a fire brigade was a discretionary power, and naturally there were a few local authorities that regarded it as an unnecessary expense. However, due to the threat of war, Parliament enacted the Fire Brigades Act 1938 and made it a duty and so created over 1,600 individual fire authorities across the nation. It was these local brigades and the Auxiliary Fire Service – also formed in 1938 – that valiantly coped with the consequences of the Battle of Britain and much of The Blitz. In August 1941, local brigades and the AFS were absorbed into one organisation called The National Fire Service. It was in 1941 that the current Headquarters house The Godlands was requisitioned for war-time use by the National Fire Service and it has remained with the fire service ever since.

World War II brought dark days indeed for Kent fire-fighters. Fire-fighting has been and will probably always be a dangerous occupation, and the Roll of Honour 1899-1990, compiled by Geoffrey Cooper, an ex-Kent fire-fighter, details the deaths of Kent fire-fighters while on duty. Of the 122 'Kent' names listed, 15 were pre-1939, 16 were post-1939 and 91 died during World War II. Nationally, well over 1,000 fire-fighters died during World War II, with stories of fire stations and the water supplies needed for fire-fighting being targeted by German bombers, to maximise the damage caused by incendiary bombs. The last death on duty of a Kent fire-fighter was in 1990.

The fire service was returned to local authority control on 1 April 1948 under the Fire Services Act 1947, with responsibility in England and Wales being given to the 146 counties and county boroughs of the day. The County of Kent and the City and County Borough of Canterbury combined to form Kent Fire Brigade, taking over 79 fire stations from the National Fire Service.

Subsequent local government reorganisations have had their effect upon the brigade, most significantly in 1965 when eight fire stations in the northwest of the county were transferred to the newly created Greater London area. Further reorganisation in 1974 saw Canterbury lose its county borough status and the fire brigade became the exclusive responsibility of Kent County Council. In 1998, the structure of local government changed again and Kent combined with the new Medway Towns unitary authority for fire brigade provision.

On 1 October 2003, Kent Fire Brigade was renamed Kent Fire and Rescue Service to better reflect the requirements demanded of it for many years. These changes were reflected nationally by the enactment of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 which came into effect on 1 October 2004.

In the spring of 2011, Kent Fire and Rescue underwent changes to its structure, these included restructuring from three divisions to 5 area groups: North Kent, East Kent, West Kent, South Kent and Mid Kent. Each group consists of a number of clusters, which are made up of a number of certain stations where resources are locally managed. The Letter prefix for each division was dropped in the station call sign, for instance Swanley, under the old system was named as Station S31 the S standing for South Division, now it is just Station 31.

Fire Stations/Appliances

K11 - Ashford Fire Station

K19 - Folkestone Fire Station

K60 - Maidstone Fire Station

K80 - Canterbury Fire Station

Station Callsign	Station Name	Duty System	Appliances
K11	Ashford	Wholetime/Retained/Cross-Crewed*	1x HRP, 1x WrT, 1x WrC*, 1x TL, 1x IRU
K12	Chilham	Retained	1x WrT
K13	Wye	Retained	1x WrT
K14	Charing	Retained	1x RP
K15	Aldington	Retained	1x WrT
K16	Dover	Wholetime/Retained/Cross-Crewed*	1x RPL, 1x WrT, 1x CSU*
K18	Whitfield	Retained	1x WrT
K19	Folkestone	Wholetime/Cross-Crewed*	1x HRP, 1x WrT, 1x GPV, 1x SWRU+IRBt*
K20	New Romney	Retained	1x WrT
K21	Hythe	Retained	1x WrT, 1x FFU
K22	Dymchurch	Retained	1x WrT
K23	Lydd	Retained	1x RP
K24	Cranbrook	Retained	1x WrT
K25	Hawkhurst	Retained	1x WrT
K26	Tenterden	Retained	1x WrL
K30	Dartford	Wholetime/Cross-Crewed*	1x HRP, 1x RP, 1x L4V+ATV*
K31	Swanley	Retained	1x WrT
K33	Swanscombe	Retained	1x WrT
K34	Ash-Cum-Ridley	Retained	1x WrL
K35	Thames-Side	Wholetime/Cross-Crewed*	1x HRP, 1x WrT, 1x PCV, 1x CSU, 1x PM+MDD*
K36	Cliffe	Retained	1x WrT
K37	Hoo	Retained	1x WrT, 1x CRV
K38	Grain	Retained	1x WrT, 1x CRV
K39	Strood	Wholetime/Cross-Crewed*	1x RPL, 1x GPV, 1x WrC, 1x PM+BFU*,1x L4V
K42	Gillingham	Retained	1x WrT
K43	Chatham	Wholetime/Cross-Crewed*	1x RPL, 1x PM+ISU
K44	Rainham	Retained	1x WrT
K45	Sittingbourne	Day-Crewed/Retained/Cross-Crewed*	1x RPL, 1x WrT, 1x CSU, 1x PM+ICCU
K46	Teynham	Retained	1x WrT, 2x GPV
K48	Sheppey	Day-Crewed/Retained/Cross-Crewed*	1x RPL, 1x WrT, 1x L4V, 1x GPV, 1x SWRU+IRBt*
K49	Eastchurch	Retained	1x WrL, 1x CRV
K50	Rochester	Wholetime	1x HRP
K60	Maidstone	Wholetime/Cross-Crewed*	1x HRP, 1x RPL, 1x TL, 1x GPV, 1x CSU, 1x DIM, 1x PM+MDD*
K61	Maidstone USAR	Wholetime	5x PM+5x USAR Pods, 1x SDU, 1x GPV
K62	Lenham	Retained	1x WrT
K63	Headcorn	Retained	1x WrT
K64	Marden	Retained	1x WrT
K65	Larkfield	Wholetime/Retained/Cross-Crewed*	1x RPL, 1x WrT, 1x WrC, 1x L4V, 2x GPV, 1x SWRU+IRBt*
K67	Borough Green	Retained	1x WrT
K68	Sevenoaks	Day-Crewed/Retained	1x HRP, 1x WrT
K69	Westerham	Retained	1x WrT
K70	Edenbridge	Retained	1x WrL, 1x CRV
K72	Tonbridge	Day-Crewed/Retained/Cross-Crewed*	1x RPL, 1x WrT, 1x SWRU+IRBt*
K73	Paddock Wood	Retained	1x WrT, 1x CRV
K74	Tunbridge Wells	Wholetime/Retained/Cross-Crewed*	1x RPL, 1x WrT, 2x GPV, 1x WMU*
K76	Southborough	Retained	1x WrT, 1x GPV
K80	Canterbury	Wholetime/Cross-Crewed*	1x HRP, 1x RPL, 1x TL, 1x PM+ISU*
K81	Alyesham	Retained	1x WrT
K83	Wingham	Retained	1x WrT
K84	Faversham	Day-Crewed/Retained/Cross-Crewed*	1x RPL, 1x WrT, 1x WMU, 1x ARU, 1x L4V+BASU*
K85	Whitstable	Day-Crewed/Retained/Cross-Crewed*	1x RPL, 1x WrT, 1x L4V, 1x SWRU+IrbT, 2x PM+HVP, 1x Pod for HVHL*
K86	Herne Bay	Wholetime/Retained/Cross-Crewed*	1x RPL, 1x WrT, 1x PCV, 1x L4V+ATV*
K87	Margate	Wholetime/Retained	1x RPL, 1x WrT
K88	Westgate	Retained	1x WrT, 1x GPV
K89	Thanet	now closed and used as Training Centre
K90	Ramsgate	Wholetime/Retained	1x HRP, 1x WrT
K91	Deal	Day-Crewed/Retained/Cross-Crewed*	1x HRP, 1x WrT, 1x LiRU*
K92	Eastry	Retained	1x WrT, 1x CRV
K93	Sandwich	Retained	1x WrT

Fire Appliance Glossary/Callsigns

Water Tender (WrT): P1
Rescue Pump Ladder (RPL): R3/P1
Heavy Rescue Pump (HRP): R1
Aerial Ladder Platform (ALP): A1
Turntable Ladder (TL): A1
Swift Water Rescue Unit + Inshore Rescue Boat (SWRU+IRBt): B1
Command Support Unit (CSU): C1
Fire Fogging Unit (FFU): M1
Animal Rescue Unit (ARU): R2
Line Rescue Unit (LiRU): R2
Water Carrier (WrC): W1
Water Management Unit (WMU): W1
General Purpose Vehicle (GPV): T1/T2/T3
General Purpose Vehicle + Breathing Apparatus Support Unit (GPV+BASU): T1
Light 4x4 Vehicle + All Terrain Vehicle (L4V+ATV): T1
Personnel Carrier Vehicle (PCV): T1/T2
Prime Mover + High Volume Pump (PM+HVP): T8
Prime Mover + High Volume Hose Layer (PM+HVHL): T9
Prime Mover + Incident Command & Control Unit (PM+ICCU): T1
Prime Mover + Incident Support Unit (PM+ISU) T4

CBRN Response

Detection, Identification, & Monitoring (DIM): H8
Incident Response Unit (IRU): H9
Prime Mover + Mass Decontamination Disrobe (PM+MDD): T9

Urban Search & Rescue (USAR)

Search & Rescue Dog Unit (SDU): R9
General Purpose Vehicle (GPV): T1
Prime Mover (PM): T5/T6/T7/T8/T9

Pods:

Module 1 - Technical Search Equipment
Module 2 - Heavy Transport, Confined Space & Hot Cutting
Module 3 - Breaching & Breaking Equipment
Module 4 - Multi Purpose Vehicle
Module 5 - Shoring Operations

Co-Responder

Kent Fire and Rescue Service works in partnership with the South East Coast Ambulance Service to provide emergency medical cover to select areas of Kent. Dymchurch, Eastchurch, Eastry, Hoo and Paddock Wood, have been identified as having a greater need for ambulance cover. The aim of a co-responder team is to preserve life until the arrival of either a Rapid Response Vehicle (RRV) or an Ambulance. Co-Responder Vehicles are equipped with:

Defibrillator
Bag and mask resuscitator
Oxygen
Airways suction units
Standard first aid equipment

gollark: Thankfully CCT is multithreaded.

gollark: [Broadcast] Switch to potatOS for a faster experience!

gollark: 🌵 🌵 🌵

gollark: I already have, repeatedly.

gollark: Solarflame has attempted to make a public billboard with logging.

References

Kent Fire and Rescue Service (accessed 9 Apr 2010)

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[1] Kent Fire and Rescue Service (accessed 9 Apr 2010)

Fire services in the United Kingdom and Crown Dependencies
England	Avon Bedfordshire Berkshire Buckinghamshire Cambridgeshire (Peterborough) Cheshire Cleveland Cornwall County Durham & Darlington Cumbria Derbyshire Devon and Somerset Dorset & Wiltshire East Sussex Essex Gloucestershire Greater Manchester Hampshire Hereford and Worcester Hertfordshire Humberside Isles of Scilly Isle of Wight Kent Lancashire Leicestershire Lincolnshire London Merseyside Norfolk Northamptonshire Northumberland North Yorkshire Nottinghamshire Oxfordshire Shropshire South Yorkshire Staffordshire Suffolk Surrey Tyne and Wear Warwickshire West Midlands West Sussex West Yorkshire
Scotland	Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
Wales	Mid & West Wales North Wales South Wales
Northern Ireland	Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service
Crown Dependencies	Jersey Fire and Rescue Service Guernsey Fire and Rescue Service Isle of Man Fire and Rescue Service
Other	Airport fire services Defence Fire and Rescue Service Defence Fire Training and Development Centre Fire Service College
Historic	Auxiliary Fire Service National Fire Service Ministry of Civil Aviation Aerodrome Fire Service
Appliances (London) History Local authority fire services New Dimension Powers