Cork County Fire Service is responding to one in three fires in less than ten minutes. A report for April 1st to July 1st 2015 showed there had been 147 call-outs to non-fire emergencies, with an average response time of 16 minutes and 12 seconds. The average response time in the second quarter of 2015, to 418 fires, was 15 minutes and 19 seconds.
Photo: (Cork County Fire Service presenting South & East Cork Area Development with smoke alarms in Midleton Fire Station recently. Left to Right; Mark Davis, David Hourigan, Joe Dilworth, Declan Barron, Frances Burke and Kenneth Healy.)
In cases where emergencies did not involve fires, the fire-service crews arrived in less than 10 minutes in 30% of the call-outs. The response time for 54% of the calls was between ten and 20 minutes, while 16% took more than 20 minutes
The report, compiled by Chief Fire Officer, Seamus Coughlan to Cork County Council, noted Environment Minister Alan Kelly’s plan for a joint procurement programme to buy 20 new fire appliances countrywide at a cost of €6m.
The Chief Fire Officer said the fire service in Cork would be submitting a request for three new appliances; however, the new fire tenders may not be arriving as speedily as the county fire crews as the Environment Minister has indicated that the procurement programme could take three years.
Cork County Fire Service recently launched a facebook page which Mr Coughlan said it was “attracting a lot of interest’ and said the page had been used between April and June to bring attention to valuable fire safety advice on building control and fire-prevention matters.
