Contingency crews called to fires during strikes

Day two of the fire strike saw contingency crews receive 170 calls and attend 80 incidents in West Yorkshire.
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Some calls were of a minor nature or duplicates and did not require attendance but no emergencies went unattended.

The most significant incident attended during the latest 24 hour strike period was a road traffic collision at 2.05am in Huddersfield where two people were trapped and extricated by Fire Service personnel.

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WYFRS control received a 999 call at 4.07pm on Sunday November 2) to a house fire where a drier had caught fire in the kitchen.

Two firefighters wearing breathing apparatus with one hose reel jet extinguished the fire. No one had to be rescued from the property.

At 4.51pm, crews also attended a chip pan fire at Low Moor, Bradford.

Two firefighters wearing breathing apparatus attended and quickly extinguished the fire.

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Assistant Chief Officer Steve Rhodes said “West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service have attended a range of incidents across West Yorkshire over the last 24 hours.

“During the middle of the night our resources were very stretched due to a road traffic accident in Huddersfield and three calls to fires all occurring at the same time”

“Again, as a reminder, please take heed of our advice and be careful if you are having a bonfire tonight. There is a firefighter strike on-going so we are calling on the public to be extra vigilant and take extra care.”

“As reported in our previous press release yesterday, the last 24 hours have been no busier than we would expect for this time of year. So far, bonfires have not caused us a particular problem, however, we have had half as many resources so it has been a challenging period.”

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The decision for strike action relates to an on-going dispute between the FBU and the Government over its public sector pension reform programme. In particular, current proposals to introduce a new Firefighters’ Pension Scheme from April 2015 to replace the two current pension schemes that most operational personnel are members of.