Avon Fire and Rescue Service
Encyclopedia
Avon Fire & Rescue Service (AF&RS) is the fire and rescue service covering the unitary authorities
Unitary authority
A unitary authority is a type of local authority that has a single tier and is responsible for all local government functions within its area or performs additional functions which elsewhere in the relevant country are usually performed by national government or a higher level of sub-national...

 of Bath and North East Somerset
Bath and North East Somerset
Bath and North East Somerset is a unitary authority that was created on 1 April 1996 following the abolition of the County of Avon. It is part of the Ceremonial county of Somerset...

, Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, North Somerset
North Somerset
North Somerset is a unitary authority in England. Its area covers part of the ceremonial county of Somerset but it is administered independently of the non-metropolitan county. Its administrative headquarters is in the town hall in Weston-super-Mare....

, and South Gloucestershire
South Gloucestershire
South Gloucestershire is a unitary district in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, in South West England.-History:The district was created in 1996, when the county of Avon was abolished, by the merger of former area of the districts of Kingswood and Northavon...

 in South West England
South West England
South West England is one of the regions of England defined by the Government of the United Kingdom for statistical and other purposes. It is the largest such region in area, covering and comprising Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. ...

.

History

Avon Fire Brigade was created in 1974, when Avon
Avon (county)
Avon was, from 1974 to 1996, a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in the west of England.The county was named after the River Avon, which runs through the area. It was formed from parts of the historic counties of Gloucestershire and Somerset, together with the City of Bristol...

 county was created. In 1996, the county was abolished and four separate unitary authorities were created. Administration of the service was taken over by a joint fire authority made up of councillors from the four unitary authorities. In 2004, the Fire And Rescue Services Act
Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004
The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.It came into effect on 1 October 2004. It only applies to Great Britain and most provisions apply only in England and Wales...

 was passed. To better reflect the changing roles and responsibilities of the fire service, Avon Fire Brigade changed its name to Avon Fire & Rescue Service.

Operations

Avon Fire & Rescue Service has a fleet of 86 appliances including 51 Pumping Appliances [22 Water Tender Ladders, 18 Water Tenders, eight Reserve Pumps, three Rapid Response Units (two operational, one reserve) and two Combined Aerial Rescue Pumps], four Aerials [three Turntable Ladders and one Hydraulic Platform], four Rescue Tenders, eight New Dimension appliances [one Incident Response Unit, one Detection Identification Monitoring Van and six Prime Movers] and 17 other Special appliances. 29 Trailers, Boats, Pods and Fork Lift Trucks are used operationally.
Avon Fire & Rescue Service also utilise a fleet of ancillary vehicles. These include 54 cars, 21 vans, four PCVs, three MPVs, four 4x4s, one Emergency Control Vehicle and one Fire & Emergency Support Service vehicle. 19 Trailers and one Balloon are also used non-operationally.

As part of the now-defunct FiReControl
FiReControl
FiReControl was a project, initiated in the UK in March 2004, to reduce the number of control rooms used to handle emergency calls for fire services and authorities. Presently there are 46 control rooms in England that handle calls from the local public for emergency assistance via the 999 system...

 project, Avon Fire & Rescue's control room was intended switch over to the regional control centre in Taunton
Taunton
Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. The town, including its suburbs, had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. It is the largest town in the shire county of Somerset....

. Originally scheduled to take place in May 2010, the cutover date was revised to November 2011,
before the plan was formally scrapped in December 2010.

On 1 January 2009, Yate Fire Station was upgraded to wholetime / retained status meaning that firefighters are ready to respond to calls 24/7. Previously, the station was day crewed / retained, which meant that the station was only crewed from 0800–1700. Outside this time, firefighters responded to the station from their homes or work places.

Community Safety

The role of a modern fire and rescue service has increased from fighting fires to cover the core functions of 'Protecting, Preventing and Responding'.
Avon Fire & Rescue Service now has a wider remit promoting community safety through events and education work, alongside attending a range of incidents and emergencies from road traffic collisions and fires, to flooding and chemical spills.
The fire service aims to cut the risk of fire developing in the first place by promoting safety messages to local residents and encouraging people to have working smoke alarms.
Avon Fire & Rescue Service runs community safety campaigns. The summer 2009 campaign, 'Be BBQ Safe', included a hard hitting interview with a BBQ fire burns victim who spent the previous summer in intensive care after using nitro to light his BBQ.

Fire stations

Avon Fire & Rescue operates 23 fire stations, of which 11 are crewed day and night (wholetime) and the remainder are crewed by retained firefighters who live or work near to their fire station and can arrive there within five minutes of a call being received. Avon also operate out of the Severn Park Joint Training Centre in Avonmouth. The breakdown of stations is as follows:

Wholetime

  • 04 Patchway
    Patchway
    Patchway is a town in South Gloucestershire, England, situated northwest of central Bristol. The town is a housing overflow for Bristol being contiguous to Bristol's urban area, and is often regarded as a large outer suburb. Nearby are the other Bristol satellite towns of Filton and Bradley Stoke....

     (Water Tender Ladder, Combined Aerial Rescue Pump, Detection Identification and Monitoring unit)
  • 05 Avonmouth
    Avonmouth
    Avonmouth is a port and suburb of Bristol, England, located on the Severn Estuary, at the mouth of the River Avon.The council ward of Avonmouth also includes Shirehampton and the western end of Lawrence Weston.- Geography :...

     (Water Tender Ladder, Water Tender, Major Rescue Tender, Welfare Unit, Rail Rescue Unit)
  • 06 Southmead
    Southmead
    Southmead is a northern suburb and council ward of Bristol, in the southwest of England. The town of Filton , and the Bristol suburbs of Monks Park, Horfield, Henleaze and Westbury on Trym lie on its boundaries....

     (Water Tender Ladder, 4x4, Hose Layer trailer)
  • 09 Temple, Bristol
    Bristol
    Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

     (Water Tender Ladder, Water Tender, Turntable Ladder, Rescue Tender, Line Rescue Unit, Breathing Apparatus Support Unit)
  • 10 Kingswood
    Kingswood, South Gloucestershire
    Kingswood is an urban area in South Gloucestershire, England, bordering the City of Bristol to the west. It is located on both sides of the A420 road, which connects Bristol and Chippenham and which forms the high street through the principal retail zone...

     (Water Tender Ladder, Command Unit)
  • 11 Speedwell
    Speedwell, Bristol
    Speedwell is an area of east Bristol, Part of the ward. It has a mixture of residential and industrial land.The shows a population of 1,515....

     (Water Tender Ladder, Water Tender, Hydraulic Platform, Operational Support Unit)
  • 14 Brislington
    Brislington
    Brislington is an area in the south east of the city of Bristol, England. It is on the edge of Bristol and from Bath. The Brislington Brook runs through the area in the woodlands of Nightingale Valley...

     (Water Tender Ladder, Environmental Response Unit)
  • 15 Bedminster (Water Tender Ladder, Water Safety Unit, Combined Aerial Rescue Pump)


Wholetime/Retained

  • 03 Yate
    Yate
    Yate is a town in South Gloucestershire, England, at the southwest extremity of the Cotswold Hills, 12 miles northeast of the city of Bristol. At the 2001 census the population was 21,789. The town of Chipping Sodbury is continuous with Yate to the east...

     (Water Tender Ladder, Water Tender, Command Support Unit)
  • 12 Bath (2 Water Tender Ladders, Water Tender, Turntable Ladder, Rescue Tender, Water Safety Unit)
  • 18 Weston-super-Mare
    Weston-super-Mare
    Weston-super-Mare is a seaside resort, town and civil parish in the unitary authority of North Somerset, which is within the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. It is located on the Bristol Channel coast, south west of Bristol, spanning the coast between the bounding high ground of Worlebury...

     (2 Water Tender Ladders, Water Tender, Turntable Ladder, Major Rescue Tender, All-Terrain Rescue Unit, prime mover
    Tractor unit
    A tractor unit, prime mover , road tractor, or traction unit is a heavy-duty commercial vehicle within the large goods vehicle category, usually with a large displacement diesel engine, and several axles. The tractor unit serves as a method of moving trailers...

     and Hovercraft, Incident Response Unit, Decomtamination Unit
    )

Retained

  • 02 Thornbury
    Thornbury, South Gloucestershire
    Thornbury is a market town in South Gloucestershire, England, approximately 12 miles north of the city of Bristol, with a population of 12,342 at the 2001 UK census. The town hosts South Gloucestershire Council headquarters and is twinned with Bockenem in Germany. Thornbury is a Britain in Bloom...

     (Water Tender Ladder, Water Tender)
  • 07 Portishead
    Portishead, Somerset
    Portishead is a coastal town on the Severn Estuary within the unitary authority of North Somerset, which falls within the ceremonial county of Somerset England. It has a population of 22,000, an increase of over 3,000 since the 2001 census, with a growth rate of 40 per cent, considerably in excess...

     (Water Tender Ladder, Water Tender)
  • 08 Pill
    Pill, North Somerset
    Pill is a village in North Somerset. It is situated on the southern bank of the Avon. Pill now includes Ham Green and is adjacent to the village of Easton-in-Gordano...

     (Water Tender)
  • 13 Keynsham
    Keynsham
    Keynsham is a town and civil parish between Bristol and Bath in Somerset, south-west England. It has a population of 15,533.It was listed in the Domesday Book as Cainesham, which is believed to mean the home of Saint Keyne....

     (Water Tender Ladder)
  • 16 Nailsea
    Nailsea
    Nailsea is a town in the unitary authority of North Somerset within the ceremonial county of Somerset, England, approximately to the southwest of Bristol and about to the northeast of the seaside resort of Weston-super-Mare. The nearest village is Backwell, which lies south of Nailsea on the...

     (Water Tender Ladder, Water Tender, USAR
    Urban search and rescue
    Urban search and rescue involves the location, extrication, and initial medical stabilization of victims trapped in confined spaces due to natural disasters, structural collapse, transportation accidents, mines and collapsed trenches.USAR teams in different countries may be organised in a...

     and High Volume Pump
    )
  • 17 Clevedon
    Clevedon
    Clevedon is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of North Somerset, which covers part of the ceremonial county of Somerset, England...

     (Water Tender Ladder, Water Tender)
  • 19 Yatton
    Yatton
    Yatton is a village and civil parish within the unitary authority of North Somerset, which falls within the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. It is located south-west of Bristol. Its population in 2001 was 9,176...

     (Water Tender Ladder, Hose Layer)
  • 20 Chew Magna
    Chew Magna
    Chew Magna is a village and civil parish within the Chew Valley in the Unitary Authority of Bath and North East Somerset, in the Ceremonial county of Somerset, England. The parish has a population of 1,161.To the south of the village is Chew Valley Lake...

     (Water Tender)
  • 21 Radstock
    Radstock
    Radstock is a town in Somerset, England, south west of Bath, and north west of Frome. It is within the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset and had a population of 5,275 according to the 2001 Census...

     (Water Tender Ladder)
  • 22 Paulton
    Paulton
    Paulton is a large village and civil parish, with a population of 4,896, located to the north of the Mendip Hills, in the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset , England....

     (Water Tender)
  • 23 Blagdon
    Blagdon
    Blagdon is a village and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Somerset, within the unitary authority of North Somerset, in England. It is located in the Mendip Hills, a recognised Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. According to the 2001 census it has a population of 1,172...

     (Water Tender Ladder)
  • 24 Winscombe
    Winscombe
    Winscombe is a village in North Somerset, England, close to the settlements of Axbridge and Cheddar, on the western edge of the Mendip Hills, south-east of Weston-super-Mare and south-west of Bristol...

     (Water Tender, Welfare trailer)

Operations

In 2009, Avon took delivery of the first Polybilt bodied Combined Aerial Rescue Platform
Quint (fire apparatus)
A quintuple combination pumper or quint is a fire service apparatus that serves the dual purpose of an engine and a ladder truck. The name quint is derived from the Latin prefix quinque-, meaning five, and refers to the five functions that a quint provides: pump, water tank, fire hose, aerial...

(CARP). It was allocated to Patchway fire station. A second Combined Aerial Rescue Pump is now with Avon at Bedminster fire station and is due to go into service in February 2011.
In 2010, Avon took delivery of two smaller pumping appliances on 12-tonne chassis instead of the usual 15-tonne chassis. This is due to the 15-tonne having access problems to some roads. Both were allocated to Clevedon and went into service in January 2011.
Three full sized pumping appliances are on order for Avon in 2011. Two were allocated to Speedwell and one to Southmead. They are due to go into service in early May 2011.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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