Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service receives international recognition
FOLLOWING on from the success of Drowning Prevention and Water Safety Week last week, Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service is honoured to be awarded The Rescue Capability Development Award, in recognition of its improvement and investment in water rescue capability.
The international award was presented at the Rescue 3 Technical Rescue Conference held in Llangollen, North Wales on Wednesday 26 April 2017. Over 400 delegates were in attendance with internationally recognised leading instructors and organisations as well as a number of fire and rescue services from around the country. The conference is held every two years and provides organisations and instructors with technical updates in rescue operations. Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service was amongst colleagues from the UK and Europe receiving an award including teams from Swissfire, ICE-SAR (Icelandic Search and Rescue), Bavarian Red Cross and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service to name but a few.
Talking about the award, Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Services deputy chief fire officer, Rob Moyney said
“It is an honour to be recognised as a Service for all of the work we have undertaken to develop our water rescue capability. Just over 18 months ago we embarked on a project to upskill and requalify all of our wholetime operational staff in water rescue and flood response operations.
“Today, Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service has a great water rescue capability due to the work and collaboration between key members of staff and our service support departments. The next stage is to upskill our retained firefighters to the same standard and to further enhance our flood response capability.
“On behalf of the chief fire officer and the service as a whole, I would like to thank all of the staff who have worked very hard over the last two years to provide Warwickshire with a first class and internationally recognised water rescue capability. We should all be very proud!”
From April 2014 to March 2017, Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service were called to 111 water related incidents. 39 of those involved rescuing a total of 59 people and 32 involved animal rescues. In addition, the service has also dealt with some major flood related incidents, which only goes to show why improving water rescue capability was a clear priority.
