United Kingdom (UK) Fire Industry News

Statewide Transfer Ambulance & Rescue (STAR) provides award-winning ambulance transport for emergent, non-emergent, special event, bariatric, and critical care situations. They currently employ 120 workers, the majority of whom are field personnel, and transport 20K people per year. In the last five years, STAR switched to digitized EMS charts to streamline operational processes. Since then, they have equipped ambulance vehicles with consumer-grade tablets. Using the tablets, EMTs can...

Allegion UK, a manufacturer of fire safety hardware and notably of ‘Briton’ door controls, is preparing to raise awareness on the importance of fire door safety at FIREX International 2023, taking place between the 16th - 18th of May at the ExCeL, London. Across the three-day event, Allegion’s door hardware experts are aiming to connect with visitors on stand F1.1217 and will share comprehensive on-site guidance on the selection, installation, and maintenance of fire door hard...

AEI Cables has expanded its center for distribution for existing and new customers at its UK headquarters.  The company has increased the space for stock at its modern facilities at Washington, Tyne & Wear in the North East. The additional facility of 13,000 sq ft will ensure all service needs are met for its customers. Meeting the demand Stuart Dover, general manager for AEI Cables, said, “The extra space means we can meet further demand for our specialist products at th...

Europe’s most important fire safety event, taking place at ExCel London Exhibition Centre, in London, United Kingdom (UK), FIREX welcomes thousands of fire safety professionals to explore the latest innovative products and solutions and meet face-to-face with the entire fire safety community – all under one roof, over three days. FIREX offers attendees a chance to meet face-to-face with the major suppliers across passive fire protection, fire detection and alarms, emergency lighting...

ALCHERA X attended the launch of XPRIZE Wildfire, a 4-year global competition aimed to award $11 million in prize funding to teams that can develop and demonstrate fully autonomous capabilities to detect and extinguish wildfires. The event took place in Washington, DC, during Earth Week 2023. Destructive wildfires have recently been recognized by the United Nations, the White House, and Congress as a major economic, environmental, and safety issue. Extreme wildfire events Extreme wildfire eve...

The fire at Manchester Road near Slaithwaite currently covers an estimated 2 km square of land. People are being advised to stay away from the area, and not to walk on the part of the Pennine Way which is close to the fire. Dozens of calls were made to West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (WYFRS) at around 1.30 pm and three fire engines were in attendance with four wildfire units. The specialist wildfire Polaris vehicle has also been deployed to help tackle the blaze and prevent it from sprea...

More than 400 items of firefighting kit are traveling from West Yorkshire to Ukraine in a bid to support those battling on the frontline.  West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (WYFRS) has contributed hundreds of items to the latest convoy, which leaves the UK (May 3rd, 2023). Among the items are 120 fire helmets and over 300 items of structural fire kit, which includes firefighting clothing, to offer as much protection as possible to firefighters in Ukraine. appliances and eq...

Jay Weber, Senior Product Manager for Blackline Safety, recently visited HazMat2 to collaborate with their team of hazmat responders and gain insights into their experiences using its equipment in the field. Jay donned several hazmat ensembles and gloves to understand the difficulties of responders downrange in PPE.  complexities and difficulties “My recent visit to HazMat2 with Ben and his team gave me an entirely new understanding of the complexities and difficulties associated w...

Vetter, a trusted brand of IDEX Fire & Safety, has upgraded its Vetter Connectable Bags C.Tec 12 N (C-Tec), a device with toolless connection technology that ensures a high degree of stability and load capacity while lifting heavy objects in rescue operations such as collapsed buildings, trapped persons and natural disasters. “C-Tec combines requirements for lifting bags of heavy rescue and creates an innovative range of applications,” said Maria Hovanes, director of North Amer...

HURST Jaws of Life® is once again arming first responders with a new rescue tool that will get them to the patient faster with the introduction of the M40 Spreader, a battery-powered spreader designed for heavy rescue applications. With a maximum opening width of 40 inches (101.9 cm), the M40 is the widest, battery-operated spreader in the market.  Author's quote “HURST Jaws of Life was the first to the fire and rescue market with the power and flexibility of battery-operat...

HURST Jaws of Life®, part of IDEX Fire & Safety’s family of trusted brands, has announced the availability of E3 CONNECT, a tool line that integrates its eDRAULIC® 3.0 rescue tools with IDEX Fire & Safety’s smart vehicle platform Captium™ Cloud to detect, record and report on tool performance and potential issues. Unveiled at FDIC 2022, E3 Connect combines traditional rescue tool functionality with the modernization of WiFi to aid departments in managing and o...

Akron Brass, a trusted brand of IDEX Fire & Safety, has expanded its revolutionary SAM™ automated water control offerings with SAM BOOST, a retrofitted SAM system that can add new safety and efficiency to any fire apparatus. controlling the nozzle “SAM BOOST offers a new way for firefighters at the scene to control the nozzle, different from the full SAM system,” said Jeff Van Meter, Director of Global Apparatus for IDEX Fire & Safety. “It is the most efficient...

From a single pair of gloves to thousands of protective garments delivered to fire departments around the world, Fire-Dex has grown from small beginnings to become a leading provider of lifesaving gear. Currently, 40 years old and currently the country’s fastest-growing manufacturer of PPE for first responders, the company has consistently led through customer-driven product innovation and a focus on family that starts at the factory. reputation for safety “We are incredibly fortu...

Streamlight®, Inc., a provider of high-performance lighting, launched the Waypoint® 400, an updated model of the Waypoint® 300. Features The new version of the rechargeable pistol-grip spotlight offers up to 1,400 lumens of ultra-bright white light with 400,000 candelas and a beam distance of 1,265 meters for enhanced down-range lighting capability. The portable light can be used as either a handheld mobile searchlight or, with its integrated stand, as a hands-free scene light to...

Recently talked about what competency means in the context of fire safety in the construction industry, from a contractor/installer point of view. Established that there is more to competency than knowledge, skill, or experience and talked about ethics, the culture of copy and paste, and the importance of knowing one’s limitations. Competency is knowing what don’t know and being prepared to ask for help. This often works for those who find themselves in a situation where they unders...

The Association for Specialist Fire Protection (ASFP), the trade association for passive fire protection will be showcasing its range of training courses, guidance documents and membership services in the ASFP Passive Fire Protection Pavilion on stand FI1224 at Firex 2023 in London Excel from 16-18 May. The ASFP Passive Fire Protection Pavilion brings together in one location a number of ASFP member companies, representing a cross section of the passive fire protection (PFP) sector. Passive f...

At fire scenes, maydays are declared nearly 80 percent of the time due to a lack of firefighter situational awareness, according to Project Mayday, a collective study of mayday incidents, responses and prevention. While mayday calls are just one of many challenges facing firefighters on the fireground, MSA Safety, Inc., will showcase solutions that address these challenges at this week's Fire Department Instructor's Conference (FDIC) in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.  FDIC is one of the wor...

Emergency scenes come in all sizes, but no matter how big or small, situational awareness on the scene is one key to firefighter safety. To enhance situational awareness and firefighter accountability, MSA Safety, Inc. has released FireGrid™ Map View, a software enhancement of MSA's LUNAR® Connected Device that enables tracking of a firefighter's estimated location when outside of a structure. LUNAR is a handheld device that provides search and rescue capabilities for firefighters an...

MSA Safety, Inc. announced that its handheld LUNAR™ Connected Device can be used on FirstNet® to provide firefighters with a solution to help strengthen the incident response. LUNAR, a wireless, search and rescue device for firefighters that doubles as a personal thermal imaging camera, is the first device of its kind to work with the FirstNet network. FirstNet, built with AT&T, is designed with and for America's first responders and the extended public safety community that could...

The extinguishing section of Euralarm has released another new guidance document. The "Guidance on Approved fill stations" outlines the main important subjects detailing how to ensure filling stations can perform as expected by the end user.  Clean agent systems work with gases that leave no residue and act against fires in the early stages of development. Filling and retesting of containers Filling of containers is a vital part of the quality controls in place to ensure that systems wor...

In support of the Safety Stand Down campaign from June 18-24, 2023, the Safety Stand Down Sweepstakes Quiz has become live, featuring questions that reinforce key messages and practices behind the theme, “Lithium-Ion Batteries: Are You Ready?” Safety Stand Down campaign Each year, the Safety Stand Down campaign and sweepstakes quiz is organized by the National Fire Protection Association® (NFPA®), the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) Safety, Health & Surv...

Jeff Naylor was the last firefighter to die in West Yorkshire when he ran into a burning building in a bid to save others. On the anniversary of that tragic incident, staff from the fire service came together at a special ceremony held in Keighley to remember his heroic actions, an act which will never be forgotten by the service. Jeff was part of a team that responded to a house fire in Keighley on April 27, 1983. He ran into the burning building to save children trapped inside, working a...

In this short article, Quelfire looks at what passive fire protection is and what it covers, the use of the term ‘fire stopping’, and the introduction of the term ‘service penetration seal’.   passive fire protection The term passive fire protection refers to a set of systems and measures that are designed to limit the spread of fire, smoke, and the amount of damage caused by fire in a building. Passive fire protection systems are built into the structure of a bui...

REV Fire Group, comprised of REV Group, Inc. fire apparatus manufacturing subsidiaries, is proud to announce that Fire Apparatus Solutions (FAS) has acquired the REV Fire California dealership and will expand its coverage as the new Ferrara™ and KME® authorized dealer for the state. acquisition by FAS “We are thrilled to have Fire Apparatus Solutions expand their operations in California with the Ferrara and KME brands. For nearly 20 years, they have been delivering unrivaled s...

Seek Thermal Inc., a renowned global provider of thermal imaging technology, has announced the launch of its latest firefighting TIC, the AttackPRO+.  Building upon the success of the AttackPRO, which offers an unmatched combination of image quality, durability, and affordability in a decision-making thermal camera, the new AttackPRO+ now provides all the same benefits with the added NFPA 1801:2021 certification. AttackPRO+ - most affordable NFPA-certified TIC The AttackPRO+ stands out i...

The fires that lit up vast areas of Marsden Moor last Thursday are being investigated as arson. West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (WYFRS) is working with West Yorkshire Police to get to the bottom of these crimes that caused damage to areas of moorland and wildlife. Risk of wildfires Richard Hawley, temporary group manager and WYFRS’s lead wildfire officer said: “We are working with the police to try and identify the people responsible for these horrific fires and bring them t...

The City of Victoria’s new state-of-the-art, post-seismic Victoria Fire Department Headquarters, located at 1025 Johnson Street, is officially open. The 3,762 square-meter (40,500 square-foot) downtown facility replaces the 2,480 square-meter (26,700 square-foot) former Fire and Rescue headquarters on Yates Street that has served Victoria since 1959. The new public safety facility meets BC Building Code standards for buildings designed to remain operable post-disaster. This means it was b...

Startling figures reveal that drowning is a bigger killer than house fires in West Yorkshire, with nine deaths taking place in one year.  National Be Water Aware Week West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (WYFRS) has joined forces with other fire and rescue services locally and nationally urging people to heed the dangers of open water. The campaign, led nationally by the National Fire Chiefs’ Council (NFCC) is being backed locally by Yorkshire Water, which owns many of the bodies...

Tyne and Wear fire chiefs have said the future of frontline services to communities has been strengthened with the continued investment in a brand new fleet of vehicles. Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service (TWFRS) have already been recognized as one of the fastest responding service in the entire country. Additionally, the TWFRS have confirmed that 10 brand new fire appliances will take to the streets across the region in the coming weeks. Brand new fleet of fire appliances Every vehicle is...

Some 260 leading exhibitors are all set to welcome trade buyers in Taipei from 26 – 28 April 2023, with a cutting-edge display of smart security products across 15,120 sqm of exhibition space. Over the next three days, trade buyers will filter through the Secutech fairground to source from a wide range of smart safety and security solutions integrated with AI, 5G, and IoT technologies. Biometrics, 5G communications, surveillance systems with embedded sensors, and cloud data analysis techn...