National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) News

The Building Safety Bill’s purpose is to implement and enhance regulatory regimes for building safety and construction projects. The bills also aims to give residents ‘a stronger voice in the system, ensuring their concerns are never ignored and they fully understand how they can contribute to maintaining safety in their buildings’. Building Safety Bill It will learn from the lessons of Grenfell Tower fire and will strengthen the whole regulatory system for building safety. T...

The National Fire Chiefs’ Council has called for all residential buildings with four floors or more to be installed with sprinkler systems after a huge fire tore through student flats in Bolton, United Kingdom last month. Fire sprinklers in Tall buildings But a Freedom of Information request from The Argus revealed 44 council-owned housing blocks in Brighton and Hove which are four storeys or taller do not have sprinklers installed. This is a worrying discovery as two of the 44 buildings...

The fire service is changing the way it responds to automatic fire alarms in some types of commercial premises. What do businesses need to know? South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue will no longer automatically mobilize fire engines to automatic fire alarms in some types of commercial premises from 6 January 2020. Currently, SYFRS automatically sends fire engines to the premises the moment a fire alarm goes off and the signal is passed, by a receiving centre, onto 999 control operators. Ins...

The Queen’s speech raised a number of post-Grenfell Tower issues including building safety standards legislation. She declared “My Ministers will bring forward laws to implement new building safety standards.”  Within the official document released alongside this speech, it stresses that the purpose of this legislation will be to “put in place new and modernized regulatory regimes for building safety and construction products, ensuring residents have a stronger voice...

At the UK Construction Week (UKCW) 2019 event, day one focused heavily on the fire safety and what actions are being taken in the construction industry to prevent further tragedy. Attending the show, BAFE observed an industry that is responding to the fire safety issue, but more action is required and fast. This comes just days after Dame Judith Hackitt told the industry to not wait for regulations to ‘raise the bar’. On the UKCW main stage, ‘Building Safe Homes: When will the...

The National Fire Chiefs Council’s (NFCC) Home Safety Week runs from 30th September to the 6th October 2019. The campaign is encouraging households to check smoke alarms are right for their homes needs and will provide them with an early warning in the event of a fire. Most homes have smoke alarms installed (95%) but in nearly 20% of accidental house fires in the UK alarm failed to activate. The most common reasons were the smoke failed to reach the detector was because batteries were eit...

Fire chiefs endorse position papers on hot work safety, the economic impact of firefighter injuries, suicide prevention, the National Firefighter Registry, data analyst/chief information officer, and the Centre for Homeland Defence and Security Fire chiefs from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States participated in the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Urban Fire Forum (UFF) last week at NFPA headquarters in Quincy, Massachusetts. NFPA President and CEO Jim Pauley welcomed...

Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS) is offering businesses fire safety advice as part of the National Fire Chiefs Council's (NFCC's) Business Safety Week 2019. The campaign runs from 9th - 15th September and aims to provide those who are with responsibility for businesses and public buildings with information and advice to reduce the number of fire incidents and false alarms in the workplace, both of which impact business safety and productivity. Reviewing risk assessments The week...

West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service will be joining other fire and rescue services across the UK in promoting business fire safety this week. Business Fire Safety Week runs from 9-15 September and aims to provide businesses with information and advice to reduce the number of fire incidents and false alarms in the workplace, both of which impact business safety and productivity. Protecting Businesses From Arson Statistics show that in 2017-18 there were 19,033 fires in UK businesses with abo...

The Fire Protection Association (FPA) is slated to host a Midlands’ Seminar themed, ‘Building a Safer Future: A Call for Evidence’– an opportunity to discuss the government’s long awaited changes to fire safety regulations, including the Fire Safety Order, Call for Evidence and the Building Safety Consultation. Fire safety proposals Following a commitment to improve fire safety regulations within the built environment, 6th June 2019 saw the British Government prov...

BAFE, the independent register of quality fire safety service providers, releases the revised Scheme Document for their Fire Risk Assessment Scheme (BAFE SP205). Following a thorough review process and a five week public consultation period, BAFE have launched the revised document for Fire Risk Assessment providers. A major point of the review was to maintain the robust certification process whilst acknowledging the large number of sole traders and in-house fire safety teams looking to gain thi...

West Midlands Fire Service (WMFS) announced that it will be hosting two realistic and interactive road traffic collision (RTC) rescue challenges at this year’s Emergency Services Show. Extrication Challenge Taking place at the NEC, National Exhibition Centre Birmingham, United Kingdom from 18 to 19 September, 2019, the Extrication and First Aid & Trauma Challenges will provide an arena for some of the UK’s best rescue personnel to come together and develop their proficiency lev...

The Metropolitan “Metro” Fire Chiefs Association, a Section of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) held its 2019 annual conference in Edmonton, Alberta June 8-14. More than 110 Metro chiefs from Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States attended the conference and elected the Association’s 2019-2020 officers and board members. The officers are: Chi...

West Midlands Fire Service is supporting the National Fire Chiefs Council’s (NFCC) National Sprinkler Week campaign, from 19 to 24 May. NFCC and the National Fire Sprinkler Network (NFSN) research into sprinkler systems’ effectiveness and reliability found that they operate on 94% of occasions and extinguish or contain the fire virtually every time. The evidence also demonstrated that in both converted and purpose-built flats, sprinklers are 100% effective in controlling fires. Ins...

Promoted by the Firefighters Memorial Trust, the Annual Service of Remembrance pays tribute and recognizes the commitment and dedication of all United Kingdom firefighters– and those serving in British overseas territories – particularly those who have died as a result of their duties while serving the community. Tribute to Lost firefighters Representatives from West Midland Fire Service will be attending the memorial event and laying a wreath, paying tribute to firefighters who ha...

Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service is supporting the National Fire Chiefs Council's (NFCC) Be Water Aware campaign. The week-long campaign runs from April 29 - May 5 2019 and is a national campaign which aims to highlight the risk of accidental drowning. Half of the accidental drownings happened in 2017 when people didn't even intend to go in the water. Activities such as running, walking, fishing and cycling near water can put the users at risk of drowning. In 2017: 255 people accident...

Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service is working with the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) as part of a national campaign encouraging people to become on-call firefighters. The ‘Need More’ awareness week runs from January (7) and aims to highlight opportunities available in the fire service, while busting myths about what it takes to be a firefighter. Promoting fire safety The campaign is supported by a national website which encourages people to get in touch with their local...

Metropolitan Fire Chiefs from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom participated in the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Urban Fire Forum (UFF) at NFPA headquarters in Quincy, Mass. NFPA President and CEO Jim Pauley welcomed the chiefs and provided an overview of the association’s Fire and Life Safety Ecosystem, reinforcing the critical role urban fire chiefs play in ensuring safe communities. Special guests at the Forum included the President of the Canadian Associ...

Checkmate Fire are long-time advocates of the benefits of third-party certification for all passive fire protection and their belief has been further strengthened by the Government’s ongoing investigation into the quality of fire doors. The company believes that all fire doors should be certified by an approved UKAS certification scheme, and it appears that the Government is now moving towards implementing this. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has examine...

The West Midlands Fire Service is committed to attracting more firefighters who are women or from minority backgrounds has been praised by the Government. Only 5.2% of firefighters in England are women, and just 3.9% from a black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds (BAME). But, since we adopted a new recruitment approach in January, 33% of our successful candidates have been women and 32% BAME. By 2020/2021, the fire service is aiming for 60% of new starters to be women and for 35% to be from...

Firefighters, community safety offices, and community champions from Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS) will be offering fire safety advice for the home to shoppers in Asda stores on Saturday 28th April, 2018. Fire services are delivering this information in support of the National Fire Chiefs Council’s (NFCC’s) collaboration with Asda. The supermarket chain was keen to offer fire services the opportunity to help keep people safer. They made 100 stores available to delive...