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Responding to fires and
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The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 is the first significant
change in the law on the operation of the Fire and Rescue Service
in over 50 years. When the previous Act was introduced, in 1947,
the Service was expected to focus on fighting fires only, adn the
law constrained what we could do. Since then the role of the
Service has changed a great deal.
As a result, under the new Act fire and rescue authorities now have
a range of statutory duties to:
- Promote fire safety;
- And to prepare for: fighting fires and protecting people and
property from fires;
- Rescuing people from road traffic collisions;
- And dealing with other specific emergencies, such as flooding
or terrorist attack, which are set out by Statutory Order and can
be amended in line with how the role of the Service may change in
the future.
In addition, all fire and rescue authorities are able to do other
things to respond to the particular needs of their communities and
the risks they face. The Act achieves this through:
- Ensuring that fire and rescue authorities can do things that
are not specifically set out in the Act but which will help them
meet their statutory duties;
- Giving authorities powers to prepare properly for other risks
to life and the environment - for example we can buy equipment and
train and deploy staff to undertake activities that we judge to
pose a risk to life or the environment in our area;
- And allowing authorities, where they have capacity, to use
staff and equipment for any other purpose they believe
appropriate.
This new framework of powers and duties equips fire and rescue
authorities to meet the challenges of the 21st century. It puts
prevention on an equal footing with intervention and enables
individual fire and rescue authorities, for the first time, to
decide in consultation with their communities how and where to
deploy their resources.
The Act therefore provides a stronger basis for fire and rescue
authorities' ability to respond to the range of risks set out in
their Integrated Risk Management Plans. The Act recognises the
wider role the Service now plays and provides the flexibility to
adapt to how the Service may change in the future.
We deliver our response to emergencies through our 35 fire stations
and support functions and highly skilled staff. We provide
emergency services to the communities of Suffolk and visitors to
Suffolk 24 hours a day seven days a week every week of the
year.
We respond to over 10,000 calls for assistance a year and attend a
wide range of emergencies from fires in domestic housing and large
industrial accidents to rescuing people from road traffic
collisions and chemical incidents to responding to fires in ships
at sea and in Suffolk's ports.
After the Fire Visits
Special
Services | | |