London Fire Brigade

1. How can we improve our services for Londoners?
First, climate change is raising the likelihood of multiple large fires. LFB must have the sufficient capacity and the ability to effectively tackle any fire, anywhere. This may entail actively engaging the public to lobby their political representatives where this is not currently possible.

Second, gIven preponderance and increasing number of high rise dwellings in London, and the Grenfell/Lakanal experiences, it is vital that the fire prevention role of LFB has a higher profile and priority. This should be achieved without detriment to the quality of the other services they perform.

2. What can we do to be more visible and accountable to your community?
Perhaps a wider promotion of Volunteer and Retained Fire Fighter programmes. Expanding the former to the lower age groups as an educational opportunity and possible longer term future recruitment gambit.

3. Outside of our emergency services, how can we support you and your communities?
LFB should be represented at every civic and community function. This will increase public awareness supporting the objectives of items 1 and 2.

I dont see how the Fire Brigade can be expected to improve its emergency services if the number of fire stations is reduced any further - and those that were closed by Major Johnson should be reopened.
Knowing how to contact the fire service (ie a non-emergency number) would be helpful if looking for advice.

My understanding is that homes in general are much more fire-safe than they were 10, 20 or 40 years ago (ex-Grenfell). So the 'need' for firestations 'everywhere' may well be said to have reduced - I can understand that argument. Maybe now however there needs to be more emphasis on fire 'first-aid' and prevention-&-escape procedures. E.g. should all high rises provide smoke hoods sufficient for all residents and visitors? What extinguishers should every home ideally have?

Clearly Grenfell was - still is - deeply shocking. So many public authorities were involved, including the LFB, contrasting with so little that was effective in the period leading up to the fire, and at the time, despite or perhaps because of the number of organistions and people involved. The situation seems reflective of all civil society today - e.g. the NHS: patches of brilliance (A&E, COVID response) set against a background of failure (mental health, COVID preparedness).

Like the police and the NHS, the LFB need to engage more closely with the public to help the public do the right thing both day to day and when difficult circumstances arise. You are the experts - we are looking to you to lead the way. Thank you.

Despite the millions (quite rightly) spent on equipment and billions on inter-agency comms- NO Fire Service in the country-never mind London- has the ability to digitally 'fence' an area of risk and communicate directly with members of the public inside that zone to give instructions, warnings etc. despite huge strides being made lately in the tech for this vitally important capability. This tech needs to be in the hands of those on the scene, can give situational awareness, operational oversight and the ability for the scene commander to issue digitally, instructions to those caught up in the incident appropriate to their location in respect of the event. This tool can also be used to steer inadvertent people away, leaving the scene to the Fire Services. It will also enable responders to be directed more accurately to those in need.
This will serve to give even greater confidence to the communities that the Fire Service is embracing the newest tech and that communicating directly with those who need it most at the time is foremost in their planning.
Pease look at www.safe-citizens.com or this link https://safe-citizens.notion.site/Fire-A-perfect-use-case-2c4097d866a54…
Best wishes
Martin

1. I am the freeholder of a Victorian terrace house with four leasehold flats. The London Fire Brigade was called in by one of the leaseholders to assess whether the two locks on the front door were safe for people to get out in a fire. The LFB officer deemed the two locks safe as they open without keys from the inside. But he advised that there should be linked smoke and heat alarms and emergency lighting on the stairs. These have now been installed so that everyone in the house is safer. The Fire Brigade should be able to assess houses in multi-occupation without waiting to be invited in.
2. The LFB is overstretched. No more fire stations should be closed and those that were closed by Mayor Boris Johnson should be re-opened. Otherwise the risk of people dying in fires in London depends on how far you are from a fire station.
3. The government needs to pay for fire-hazard cladding to be removed from ALL buildings, not only those above a certain height. If freeholders are responsible for putting the cladding on, the government should recoup the costs from them.

I'd love to see more outreach, with the associated extra funding necessary, particularly to schools. Take an apparatus (perhaps one recently retired from active service, so as not to take one away from duty), park it in front of a primary school, with a few LFB crew in full gear, let the kids touch it, maybe climb in, etc., talk to them so they don't fear firefighters in all the kit, give an assembly on basic fire safety - smoke alarms, how to react to a fire, importance of never calling in a false alarm, some basic don't play with matches style advice, and stuff their schoolbags with leaflets for families on home fire safety basics - checking alarms, planning escape routes, avoiding common but less obvious hazards (e.g. magnifying mirrors in direct sun, overloaded sockets or appliances etc.), and some non-emergency contact info where hazards can be reported, questions asked, etc. as an alternative, host school trips to firehouses more. But while this is more convent and less disruptive, I think you probably reach more kids by going to them than by getting them to come to you. Some of this seems to happen at nursery ages but then stops? Needs regular reinforcing right through the end of Year 6, I think. I've seen some brilliant and engaging presentations from eg fire insurers re: how people fail to react to fire, use extinguishers wrong, etc. - useful for anyone to see.

Firemen play a very important role in the Emergency Services I think that the government should fund the LFB to run workshops so that we as a community including children should be taught the importance of Health & Safety as well as learning Basic First Aid Skills.

I know it is a lot to ask but it would give everyone a fighting chance to save lives. They only teach these skills in the workplace if you are lucky.

I get the sinking feeling that the current administration like a previous one are determined to
Close many more fire stations
Put people's lives at risk.
Please refrain from closing more stations. Instead:
Restore/reopen the Number of Fire Stations to 2008 number of stations.
Hire more Fire safety/fire brigade staff for better response times to keep Londoners SAFE.
Could the volume of the sirens from Fire Trucks be reduced?
Thank you.

Whenever I've seen a subject-line like this it's been about cutting services - closing local fire stations/removing appliances..... Hopefully that's not the agenda here. What we need [or hopefully won't have cause to] from the Fire Service is a locally situated and properly resourced emergency service. Beyond emergency responding, LFB can best serve communities by using their expert voice to ensure that regulations are adhered to and Grenfell Tower etc can never happen again. The role of emergency services is to deal with the emergency AND to help make sure we all sleep safely in our beds.

Firefighters do not need to be visible or engage with the community. They need to be highly trained and focused on dealing with fires and other emergencies. Please do not make them waste their time handing out leaflets or attending summer parties.

The firefighters do and amazing job but there main priority is fighting fires. To do there’s other jobs would need more funding. The LFB is sometimes used as a scapegoat when things go wrong but without the proper funding they surely can only do a certain amount.
Visiting schools is a great idea.

The Brigade needs to have a strong community presence in schools as every generation of children needs to be taught about fire safety, and how to support fire fighters to do their life saving work.

Operationally, we continue to see fires affecting tower blocks and much smaller homes.

In the past, every brigade in the country had fire safety advisers who would visit sites with people like architects, housing officers and others to look at means of escape, without making a charge . Is this happening now ? I doubt it.

In my view, an visit should be made to the public areas of every residential block over 10 floors every 2nd year, to check means of escape. This would admittedly take a huge amount of officer time.

With regard to building regs, I keep seeing articles in the press about house fires in 2 storey homes.

In many cases (maybe, most) windows at 1st floor do not open. Why not? I think that , by Law, every external room in every house or flat should have one opening window, for means of escape. This of course needs to be done in such a way as to prevent children falling out. Suerly it must be possible to design such opening windows with child-proof safety catches allowing for adults to open a window fully.

Please could these ideas be noted and fed back to decision makers?

I think the LFB, (and all emergency services), do a wonderful job, but it is being made more difficult by all the road closures. Response times are increasing, yet the 999 services are still expected to be on site almost immediately. It is way past the time that these ill-concieved measures, brought in under the excuse of Covid, were removed to lessen congestion.

The fire and rescue service is largely underappreciated. The crews have very wide ranging specialist training and the service carries out a lot more work than putting out fires. We need more public information to be disseminated on what services can (and can not) be provided and to recognise our local heroes for who they are. Open days and school visits are just a start.

Will the fire bridge be taking on the recommendations from the Hackett report. Which identified shocking gaps in training, experience and a failure in the command structure.

It is good news that the new building safety bill and the new regulatory body that has the same powers as the HSE, setting competency standards will ensure that proper professionals are involved in ensuring safety standards are maintained.